FROM TRINCOMALEE TO PRESIDENT’S OFFICE

by Eric de Silva

When communal troubles broke out after the General Elections of 1977 and Coordinating Officers were appointed by Government for most districts, I was the only Government Agent appointed to that position despite the situation in Trincomalee being particularly bad. Senior officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force or Police were appointed in the other districts.

It came to be known that this exception had been made as the Service Commanders and the IGP had said in unison that that there was no point in appointing anyone else when the former Senior Assistant Secretary (Defence) was in charge at Trinco.

In carrying out my duties as Coordinating Officer for the district, I came in contact with Prime Minister J.R. Jayewardene, and got the opportunity of meeting him on a number of occasions during the visits he made to Trinco. He had a number of meetings with senior military officers and other officials during these visits. During one of his visits, he had a discussion with me at the Navy House all by myself during, which he openly expressed satisfaction at the way I had performed my duties during a very difficult time.

Given the above background, it came as no surprise when I was appointed as Additional Secretary to him when a vacancy arose in that position in March 1978 and I was desirous of getting back to Colombo. The Secretary to the President, WM.P.B. Menikdiwela had been known to me for quite some time and had been supportive of my coming over as an Additional Secretary in his office, the other such position being held by someone junior to me in the Administrative Service, though senior in age.

While I was happy working in the President’s Office and about the working environment there, many of my juniors had gone past me to be Ministry Secretaries. Menik, who was conscious of this had spoken to the President about it and, as result, they offered me the post of Secretary in the Ministry of Labour which had fallen vacant around that time. I had no reason to turn it down. The Labour Ministry, incidentally, was located a mere five minute drive from Wijerama Mawatha where I was residing at the time.

Before I move on to the Labour Ministry, let me place on record an unforgettable experience I had while working in the President’s Office. This was an unforgettable stint as Acting Chairman of the National Film Corporation (NFC)

In the initial allocation of subjects and functions between Cabinet Ministers in 1977, the NFC which came under Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, had been retained under Prime Minister J.R.Jayewardene, and it continued to remain so even after he became President. It fell into the group of Ministries and institutions that I had to overlook as one of the two Additional Secretaries.

The nature of its work, however, was such there was very little that came to the President’s Office for its attention. A crisis, however, struck suddenly when its incumbent Chairman, failed to get the clearance of the Parliamentary Select Committee (popularly known as the High Posts Committee) appointed to examine the suitability of persons selected for appointment to high positions in the public sector.

This naturally created more than normal interest as the person concerned came to be known as a close associate of a VVIP of the ruling party. Amidst the furore that this created, the President called me up and said that he had picked Anton Wickremesinghe as a suitable person to be appointed as the new Chairman of the Corporation. He went on to say that AW was living in UK at the time and had asked for a month or two to wind up his activities there and get back to Sri Lanka. Not stopping with that, he gave me the surprise of surprises by asking me to function as Acting Chairman until Anton turns up, adding that it would be a month or two at most.

The President went on to say that I did not have to go to the Corporation office (located at Bauddhaloka Mawatha) and that I could get them to send whatever papers that needed my attention to me at the Presidential Secretariat. I had no way of saying ‘No’ although I did not fancy the idea very much as I felt somewhat ill-equipped to deal with the world of films, film stars and film producers. Mercifully, it was going to be “a month or two at most”! This is how I became head of the National Film Corporation on June 22, 1978.

I had to function in that capacity until Anton Wickremesinghe appeared on the scene not in two months time but eight months later (i.e. February 1979). I must say, however, that I enjoyed the experience very much and this was made possible due to the unremitting support I got from its Board of Directors.

Amongst its members were two leading film stars – Irangani Serasinghe and Joe Abeywickrema, and two well-known media men, Thevis Guruge and D.H. Abayasinghe. Amongst the others were Prof G.L. Peiris from the Law Faculty of Colombo University – a person who struck me then as a man of few words – showing no signs of the politician he has later turned out to be.

I made it a point to go to the Corporation office regularly and not let the institution suffer as a result of its Chairman being thrown out of his job and the person selected to succeed him not being able to assume duties for a much longer period than had been originally expected. The fact that I was living at Wijerama Mawatha at the time, just a few minutes drive from the NFC, made it easy for me to go there whenever possible in the afternoons on the way home from the President’s Office and attend to any papers before getting home.

Members of the Board of Directors gave me their unstinted support and we were able to achieve many things, working closely together. Among the numerous things we did was to get down high quality Tamil films in response to the demands of the viewing public, for which purpose I even made a visit to Madras to get the assistance of our Deputy High Commissioner’s Office located there. There were many programs that were already being implemented to improve the quality of Sinhala films, and steps were taken to strengthen these.

One day, His Excellency the President called me up and said that the country had been starved of good English films for a long time, and asked me to see what the problem was and do something about it. When I looked into the matter I found that this was due to a virtual breakdown of relations between NFC and the Cinematic Renters Association (CRA) which had the distribution rights for most of the major film-makers in United States like 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Metro Goldwin Mayer and United Artists, and had its Regional Office in Bombay.

This stand-off between the two was apparently due to a dispute between them about a claim of Rs. 6.5 million that the CRA claimed was due to them which the NFC had failed to remit to them (apparently due to some foreign exchange regulations which stood in the way). There is no doubt that this deadlock had to be broken if we were to get down high quality English movies to Sri Lanka like the President mentioned.

In the circumstances, I thought of making a trip to Bombay to talk things over with CRA to find a way out and save time that would be wasted in correspondence. Hence, I obtained the President’s approval to do so, taking with me George Wickremasinghe (Director of the Government Film Unit) who functioned at the time as Consultant to the NFC.

We booked into a hotel not too far away from the CRA office so as not to waste time in Bombay’s traffic jams. A whole day’s discussions at the CRA office, however, yielded no positive result and we were to take the flight back to Colombo early next afternoon after perhaps a hurried ‘shopping round’ in the busy bazaars of Bombay.

We didn’t want to return empty handed (where the official business was concerned) and after spending a sleepless night trying to find a way out of the deadlock we stuck on a novel idea. We sought one more meeting with CRA during the following morning and put the idea across to them. This was to allow the so-called blocked funds (to use the words that the CRA used) amounting to Rs. 6.5 million to be used for setting up of a fully equipped film complex for the screening of high quality English films.

After a great deal of discussion and with the clock ticking very fast towards the conclusion of a seemingly fruitless discussion, they changed gear and not only agreed to our proposal but agreed to send their films for screening in Sri Lanka right away. This was much more than we ever expected, and George and I felt as if we were ‘over the moon’.

With that assurance in hand, we made it in time to the airport for the return flight. It goes without saying that the President and the Board of Directors were more than happy to hear the outcome of our visit. In the meantime, the news got round and the titles of some of the films to be brought came to be known.

Picking on one of them, namely ‘That’s Entertainment’ for its title, the Observer of January 13, 1979 wrote: “So, after a long seven years of drought, the public can slake their thirst for entertainment from March. The long awaited American films which were coming, coming, coming have at last come

The ‘Weekend’ newspaper, which interviewed me at the Presidential Secretariat, carried a report the next day under the title “COMING SOON – The Best from the West” along with a photograph of mine taken during the discussion. It broke the news to the public that a team from CRA would be in Colombo in two days to sign the necessary agreements for the distribution of films released by top American film-makers. It also added that another team from Britain would be here to sign a similar agreement for films produced there.

A visit to Sri Lanka by a team of top officials of CRA (Bombay) led by its Chairman followed, and he signed an agreement with me to supply Sri Lanka “69 top class American films” to quote the Ceylon Daily News report which followed giving a full list of the 69 films due to be supplied by Warner Brothers, Paramount Films, Universal Films, M.G.M. Films, Columbia Films, Twentieth Century Fox Films and United Artist Films.

The report added that two of these – The Towering Inferno and Abba-the Movie have already arrived in Sri Lanka and this is how a filmgoer by the name of Amaranath Paul showed his appreciation in a letter to the Editor published in the Ceylon Daily News of January 20, 1979: “All the best to the State Film Corporation. For the fifth or sixth time since its inception seven years ago, several have attempted to resurrect this corporation from chaos to a money making concern, but to no avail. This time the SFC await in great expectation, for the “Jaws” of the SFC to pour out entertainment par excellence, especially with regard to movies from USA’

There were many other initiatives taken by me during the short spell I functioned as Acting Chairman of NFC – too many to mention here. One such was the establishment of the Rukmani Devi Memorial Fund in honour of the undisputed Queen of the Sinhala Cinema and leading songstress who died in a fatal motor car accident late at night of October 28,1978, at Tudella, north of Ja-ela, while on her way, if I remember right, to see her ailing mother.

When the news of the tragic death reached us in Colombo I got cracking and got the approval of the Board and the Minister to launch the Rukmani Devi Memorial Fund and announced same at her funeral – an act which was deeply appreciated by the grieving public.

At its meeting held on February 14, I informed the Board of Directors that Anton Wickremesinghe would be arriving in the island shortly and taking over the mantle from me. I added that it was likely to be the last Board meeting I would attend, and to my surprise very touching remarks by Members of the Board followed this announcement, making me proud that I had performed well on unfamiliar terrain.

At the very first meeting chaired by the new Chairman a couple of weeks later similar sentiments had been expressed ending with a formal letter addressed by him to the Secretary to the President.