( an experience in managing ethnic conflict )
by
Neville Jayaweera
Chapter 5
Models of governance in contention
On the day of the mass demonstration in Jaffna, much more was at stake than merely the question of law and order. Two contrary models of governance were vying for credibility – the confrontational model and the conciliation model. Would the model of dialogue and conciliation advocated by me work, or would we have to fall back on the confrontational model advocated by N.Q. Dias and the military. Over the five preceding years in Jaffna, the confrontational model had failed repeatedly, and the Prime Minister, in an unprecedented turnaround, had mandated me to try out the conciliation model. Now, the testing time was upon me.
Any person in authority who has to manage a major social or political conflict is always skirting moral boundaries and is in risk of encroaching on them unless he is armed with a sensitive moral compass. Therefore, my first priority was to see that all those who were involved with me on the government side that day were aware of those boundaries and that we shared a consensus.
Conforming to the Prime Minister’s directive that the GA should co-ordinate all police and military responses to the proposed mass protest, I called a conference of police and military senior officers and of all Divisional Revenue Officers ( DROs) of my district. I explained to the conference the need to look on the challenge confronting us as more than merely a law and order problem and outlined the long term political issues involved, effecting not only the incumbent government but the nation as a whole. I presented to those present 2 plans, Plan “A”, and a fall back Plan “B”, to be activated if Plan A failed.
My Plan “A” was daring and unprecedented in the experience of all present. It proposed to dismantle all barricades, keep all police and military personnel off the streets on the day of the march, lest even their very presence might be taken as a provocation, and allow the demonstrators complete freedom to march, shout slogans and burn any effigies they wanted to, except that the Suptd. of Police would stay with me in my office to help me co-ordinate the government’s response.
Fall back Plan “B”, was to keep the Riot Squad which had come up from Colombo, in reserve and barracked secretly in the Jaffna Fort, to be called out if needed.
I was fully aware that, to any rational person, my Plan “A” must have seemed not only a gamble but sheer lunacy, and bound not only to fail, but also likely to put the reputations and careers of the police and the military in jeopardy. However, I showed those present why Plan “A” will not fail.
I pointed out that mass demonstrations and rallies erupt in violence and mayhem because of three reasons. Either bystanders jeer at the demonstrators or mount a counter demonstration. Or the demonstrators themselves attack bystanders and provoke them, or the police or military act as agent provocateur and precipitate the mayhem. I said that in this instance there was no threat from bystanders because far from jeering at the demonstrators they will simply urge them on. As for the likelihood of demonstrators attacking bystanders, they will be marching within their own environment and they had no reason to provoke bystanders or throw missiles through shop windows, or smash street lamps. After all, this was their own city and they were unlikely to raze it!. That left the police and the military as the only possible agents provocateur, and by withdrawing them from the scene we would have eliminated all possible sources of trouble!
Even though the police and the military seemed to chafe at my reasoning, the more intelligent amongst them realised that I was not some starry-eyed dreamer but that I had thought my strategy through clearly. Furthermore, when I reminded them that the Prime Minister herself had mandated me to co-ordinate the government’s response, and on my written assurance that I took full responsibility for the outcome, they all fell in line.
The spectre of the 1961 satyagraha campaign.
A spectre was haunting us, the spectre of 1961. In 1961 the government responded to the satygrahis with blatant force and hundreds of them had to be treated in the hospital for head injuries. On the other hand, the government alleged that the satygrahis had first triggered government's reaction by using violence on Mr N.Q.Dias when he tried to cross the picket lines. That confrontation went on for 3 whole months, throughout the whole of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, leaving in its wake a great deal of acrimony and destroying any possibility of a rapprochement. We reached a consensus that we would adopt a strategy completely different from the one the government had adopted in 1961 and direct all our energies towards a constructive outcome.
However, I must hasten to add that I do not recommend Plan “A” for adoption indiscriminately in all conflict situations. Every conflict has its own specific characteristics, requiring in each case a uniquely nuanced response rather than a stereotypical one, and those in authority must be alive to the varying and subtle demands of each situation. Throughout my career I have had to handle conflicts of varying degrees of complexity, ranging from highly militant trade union upheavals in Gal Oya, massive political protests in Jaffna, and CMU ( Ceylon Mercantile Union ) led strikes at the Broadcasting Corporation, and not least, to the armed JVP uprising in 1971 in Vavuniya, and in each case my response was specifically nuanced. I must add however that all my responses shared one thing in common, and that was respect for moral boundaries.
The fateful day
The day for the march and mass demonstration arrived. It was a typical day in early October in Jaffna, with temperatures in the shade rising to 100 degrees F by 10.am! The Southwest kachan winds that blow from May to September mitigating the ferocity of the Jaffna sun had died out, and the cooling rains of the North East Monsoon had yet to commence. It was the inter-monsoonal month when the whole of the peninsula sizzles like an oven. The sky was an azure blue, untainted by even a speck of cloud. By eleven in the morning a pitiless sun had turned the tarmac road running past the Kachcheri into a river of molten black treacle and I felt a great compassion for the demonstrators who will soon have to march on this fiery surface.
By police estimates, over 30,000, far in excess of the number anticipated even by the Tamil leaders, marched on the Kachcheri that day. The entire esplanade and the Main Street was one heaving, jostling, slogan shouting, mass of humanity. From my office, their slow approach sounded like the roar of an angry monsoon sea, making Trixie and my parents who were watching from the balcony of the Residency fearful for my personal safety. The agitated crowd swarmed outside the Kachcheri and on to the Residency grounds, and for over an hour, kept up a steady and deafening drum beat of slogans.
They carried placards denouncing the Prime Minister and several effigies of her, and shouted slogans to match. It was a tailor made situation for a conventional police response with baton and tear gas, but the police had been confined to barracks!
After the crowd’s frenzy had spent itself in Jaffna’s noon-day heat, I walked out to meet them, accompanied only by the Suptd. of Police. We were totally unprotected, there not being a policeman or soldier in sight, and as a powerful metaphor of our intentions van Sanden had even left his revolver and holster behind, and I had a Parker 51 fountain pen showing from the breast pocket of my shirt. This was not how we were supposed to react. Even when the demonstrators burnt an effigy of the Prime Minister and a copy of the Official Language Act in our presence, actions tantamount to extreme provocation, especially when perpetrated before the government's chief representative in the district, we watched impassively.
The frenzied crowd found this response from the GA and the police totally disconcerting. They had been programmed to expect barricades, tear gas and baton charges but what they were seeing was totally unscripted.
After I had completed a short walkabout, I turned to their venerated leader S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, and within earshot of those around him, said,
"Sir, why don't you and a few others come inside from the sun, so that we may talk things over in my office".
Mr Chelvanayagam was very feeble, stricken with early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease even then. So, holding him by his hand, I led him into my office, to the accompaniment of thunderous cheers from the crowd, followed by about 6 other Federal Party and Tamil Congress stalwarts,
From an imperialist GA to a peoples’ GA
Inside my office, I listened to a long memorandum of protest citing the alleged injustices committed against the Tamil people, which Dr E.M.V. Naganathan read, and which I said I would submit to the PM for her attention. Thereafter, I invited the Tamil leaders, who, after hours of marching and shouting in the Jaffna noon day sun were thirsty and hungry, to partake of some sandwiches and cakes that Trixie had thoughtfully prepared for them, which they happily consumed. Having washed it all down with some tea and some soft drinks, and after exchanging some light hearted banter with us and shaking hands warmly with van Sanden and me, the Tamil leaders walked out into the crowd again. However, I too walked out along with them, again helping Chelvanayagam respectfully by his hand in the sight of the vast concourse. As we emerged from my office we were all greeted to a renewed round of cheers!!
The crowd was at a loss as to what to do next. Through our totally unexpected response we had neutralised their Plan “A” but they had no Plan “B” to fall back on, and the Tamil leaders’ credibility plummeted.!! The whole thing seemed a huge let down, a farce, ending in a whimper rather than with a bang, and as the dejected and bedraggled demonstrators trickled away, trailing their banners and placards behind them, I suspected that their disenchantment was about to recoil on their own leaders!
The Tamil leaders had expected me to set up barricades, to call out the police and the military in strength, and to use tear gas and batons to disperse the marchers, so much so that they had instructed them to bring suitable head gear to fend off blows from police batons and scarves to wear as masks for warding off tear gas. Those headgear and scarves were never used!
The critical day had arrived and passed without a canister of tear gas being fired, or a baton being wielded, or even a stone being thrown. Everyone's rights had been respected and protected and proceedings had been totally democratic, harmonious and civilised. Above all, the much-feared Secessionist Movement that had instilled panic in Colombo had evaporated and the air was now clear for sworn enemies to start talking to each other gain.
Within a few brief hours the GA had been transformed from an imperialist oppressor into the peoples friend! As the crowd dispersed, van Sanden, my secretary Shanmugaratnam, and I polished off what remained of the sandwiches and the cakes, which tasted all the sweeter for the joys that the day had brought!
The overwhelming power of non-power
The events of that day had far reaching consequences. The negative perceptions that the Federal Party, the Tamil Congress, and the Tamils in general, had of my administration in particular, and of the government in general, had metamorphosed dramatically.
At my first meeting with him three months earlier, Mr N.Q.Dias had instructed me to establish the government’s undisputed ascendency over the Tamil people. In the event, I had established something far superior to anything Mr Dias had demanded. I had established the ascendency of understanding and harmony over prejudice and conflict, and I had achieved this not by military might or by material power, but through the overwhelming power of non-power. More than anyone else, Mr Dias should have known the power of metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion) upekha (equanimity) and mudita (altruistic joy). It is a source of endless wonderment to me how, while talking eloquently about the Brahma Viharas many people cauterise their minds to the sublime truths set out in them, and seek ascendency over their fellow beings.
For any government to have as one of its objectives, the establishment of ascendancy over any section of its own people is self debilitating, for wherever there is ascendency, whether the ascendency is of class, race, religion or economic power, there must also be oppression, as concave and convex of the same reality, and wherever there is oppression the house is divided, and however long it takes, under the weight of its own contradictions, a divided house must eventually fall.
I was hoping that the government would move swiftly to launch a new peace initiative and give constitutional substance to the harmony I had achieved on the ground, but it was not to be. The field was rich with a golden harvest but there were no gatherers!
An outpouring of government perversity infected the fruits of my toil. Once the mass demonstration had collapsed and the threatened Secessionist Movement had dribbled into the sand, the government saw the outcome as a resounding defeat of the Tamils and as an unqualified victory for the state. Rather than maintain the momentum of reconciliation, the government reverted to its combative mindset and started throwing cheap jibes at the defeated enemy. It is a sad comment on our human condition that once entrapped within the combative mould, some find it impossible to climb out, opting instead perpetually to validate their lives by prolonging conflict.
I must place on record my extreme disappointment that the Sirima Bandaranaike government of 1960-65 failed to build on the groundwork I had laid in Jaffna. Surely, the reproach of history will weigh heavily on them.
However, while the ruling SLFP government played ostrich, the UNP capitalised on the new glasnost and sent emissaries to Jaffna to talk to the Tamil leaders, and out of those talks emerged the rapprochement of 1965, between the government led by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and the two main Tamil parties.
It gave me great satisfaction that the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Accord was signed during the last few months of my tenure in Jaffna. That indeed was the first gathering of the harvest, the first fruits of my sowing, but alas, the gatherers soon lost heart and the fruits withered on the vine. For reasons that cannot be recounted here, that Accord too, like the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact of 1957, was abrogated by the government, unilaterally, an year after it was signed. The conflict that was renewed thereafter burgeoned and spiralled out of all control bringing violence, death and destruction to the whole Island for over 45 years.
A new political adventure
All the events I have recorded so far occurred during the first four months of my tenure as GA, i.e. between September and December 1963, and there stretched before me at least another two and a half years of tenancy.. However, before I could settle down to a normal routine and start addressing the gamut of developmental problems that constitutes the portfolio of any GA, I had to deal with a new political challenge, the existence of which neither the police nor even the conventional Tamil political parties were aware.
After the initial opposition from the Tamil leaders had abated and we had arrived at a modus vivendi, a group of youth, feeling that their leaders had sold the pass and were now collaborating with a hated Sinhala government, decided that they had to reverse the trend. However, they set about their intentions in a dramatically different fashion, portending the rise of Tamil militancy and violent rebellion two decades down the road. Let me now turn to a narration of that drama!
To be continued
