Turmoil in Trinco as Chelva’s ashes arrive

by Eric de Silva

The National State Assembly (as Parliament was known under the 1972 Constitution) was dissolved on May 18, 1977 and a General Election fixed for July 21, 1977 with June 6 as Nomination Day.

The Trincomalee district had three constituencies namely, Trincomalee, Mutur and Seruvila. The TULF picked R. Sampanthan, a leading lawyer practising in Trincomalee courts in preference to the sitting member B.Neminathan for the Trincomalee seat.

While we were making arrangements for Nomination Day fixed for June 6, it came to be known that the late TULF leader Mr. S.J.V. Chelvanayakam’s ashes were to be brought to Trincomalee for public veneration. They were to be brought by air to China Bay and thereafter to Trinco town in procession on June 3.

The next afternoon (June 4), the ashes were to be brought in procession to the large playground opposite Fort Frederick known as the Big Maidan. The SP had given permission for both these events in the absence of any ‘intelligence’ to the effect that there was going to be any sort of trouble on account of them.

The day the ashes were brought from China Bay to Trincomalee town there had been a few minor skirmishes involving some Tamil cyclists accompanying the motorcade and some Sinhalese onlookers who were residents of the area through which it was passing. The Police had however prevented anything serious from happening, and the ashes had reached where they were to be safely kept for the night.

I was at the Residency on the night of June 3 reviewing Nomination Day procedures when at about 9 p.m. news reached me that there was trouble down town with some Sinhalese people being beaten up by Tamil mobs apparently as retribution for the slogan shouting that took place when the motorcade passed through their area on its way to the town earlier in the afternoon.

When I got in touch with the ASP in-charge in the absence of the SP who had gone for the opening of a new police station in the Polonnaruwa district (which too came within his purview), he told me that he had already moved his men out to the trouble spots. Information kept flowing in, however, that a number of Sinhalese people were being brought to the hospital with injuries, some of which were of a grievous nature.

The SP was expected to return to Trinco in the night, and I left word for him to meet me as soon as he returned, which he did past midnight. After discussions with me, he passed down necessary instructions to his staff for preventing the incidents from escalating. By the 4th morning however about 10-12 people – all of them Sinhalese – had been admitted to hospital and one of them succumbed to his injuries.

Just as I was trying to get in touch with the Defence Secretary (Mr. W.T.Jayasinghe), he phoned me having read a few police messages that had come his way which referred to the above incidents. I briefed him about the developments and requested him to ask the Service Commanders to instruct their local units to be in readiness to come out and assist the Police if needed.

I followed this up with a meeting with the SP and the local Service Heads to discuss the steps that had to be taken to prevent an escalation of violence. Almost immediately, the officer commanding the local army unit took steps to move his men out to assist the police in their duties. The SP, in the meantime, took steps to withdraw the permission he had earlier given for both the meeting and the procession that were due to be held that afternoon.

There were no incidents during the day on the June 4 and I was able to hold my nomination rehearsals in the afternoon, without any disturbance. After dusk, however, reports started coming in about attacks on Tamil people by the Sinhalese at various places in and outside Trinco town.

It became evident that they were trying to outdo what the Tamils had done the previous night; and the situation got worse by about 10 p.m. despite all the patrolling the police and the army who had been deployed to support them were doing.

There was not much time to be lost if we were to prevent the situation getting totally out of control, and even spreading outside the district putting the General Elections due to be held in a few weeks’ time at risk.

According to reports that reached us two Tamils had already lost their lives and 15 more injured. We had to not only act fast but also make our intent clear to drive fear into the minds of potential trouble makers, and back up our resolve with a visible show of strength.

Since I found the police and the army to be badly short of both men and vehicles I asked them to put down their requirements on paper so that L could get in touch with Colombo with the least possible delay. That clearly was not enough and there was a need to get down as much military hardware as was possible to be able to frighten away the miscreants, whoever they may be.

This meant that the final list had to include even armoured cars for static duty as well as for moving armed personnel around, in addition to the normal jeeps and other vehicles used for patrolling.

With the lists in my hand I telephoned Mr. Jayasinghe, gave a full brief about developments and read out our list of requirements to be able to bring the situation under control with the least possible delay.

The list included additional police strength, a riot squad, armoured cars and more jeeps to provide additional mobility to police and service personnel. I stressed as best as I could the need for these to arrive in Trincomalee by early morning, preferably before day-break. It did not take much effort for me to convince him of these, as he had sufficient confidence in my being able to assess the gravity of the situation and the steps that had to be taken.

While I was still on the phone he got in touch with the Service Commanders and the IGP on the ‘hot line’, and agreed to send everything that I asked for. I was able to convince him of the importance of the riot squad and the armoured cars arriving in Trinco before daybreak on June 5 to get the message across to potential trouble makers that we meant business.

He assured me that the police riot squad would leave Colombo by midnight and that the armoured cars would be sent from the army camp in Anuradhapura. He also said that additional police strength would be sent from Colombo and the jeeps asked for from Colombo or other districts.

Having agreed to all my requests the Secretary told me that he would himself be arriving in Trinco with the Army Commander the next morning for an on-the-spot assessment. This, I welcomed, as they would then be able to make their own assessment of how well or badly we were dealing with the situation.

The armoured cars arrived by morning and soon made their presence felt in the readiness while the police (aided by the other services) were able to do their mobile patrolling better with the help of the additional vehicles they received. While potential trouble-makers, whether they be Sinhalese or Tamil, got the message that was intended to be given, peace-loving people of Trinco felt safe and secure.

Although calm was thus restored, we did not want to take any chances on nomination day having seen instances when one stray incident was enough to change the whole equation. I therefore took steps to let it be known that, though regretfully, we would have to impose certain restrictions in the streets of Trinco and even in and around the Town Hall where Nominations were to be taken.

The riot squad of the police had also arrived and stood on alert on Nomination Day to prevent anything from happening that would disrupt the proceedings, and our main objective was achieved.