Conspiracies to overthrow Government - II

UNP and coups d’etat

Navy Commander arrested:

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

In 1962 came the most powerful coup d’etat with one Service Commander, many Deputy Inspector Generals, Colonels, other senior police, Army and Navy officers plus a civil servant who wanted to kill the then Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike and seize power.

There have been attem-pts to illegally overthrow governments of leaders who followed nationalistic policies and did not follow the western models of governance.

The history of attempts to overthrow lawfully constituted governments if retold in pithy form could not tire the reader. Though much had been written about those coups d’etat, people either forget them after many years and those living at the present times may not be aware of how or why such lawless aberrations were hatched with sinister motives.

The very first coup was against the founder leader of the SLFP the inimitable S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1959 just three years after he won a landslide election victory. The coup started with the introduction of the socialist policy, the Paddy Lands Act of 1958 by Philip Gunawardena to give land holding rights of the tenant farmer.

The first phase of the coup began with the right wing group of the 1956 MEP Coalition Government resorting to what was then known as “The Cabinet strike”.

The right wing clique, C.P.de Silva, Wijayananda Dahanayake, Maithripala Senanayake and Wimala Wijewardena and Stanley de Zoysa kept away from the weekly Cabinet meetings. Their aim was to oust the two Ministers Philip Gunawardena and P. H. William Silva who were implementing socialist policies.

Finally came the assassination of Premier Bandaranaike in September 26, 1959 by the coup hatched by the right wing. One of the right wing ministers of that government Wimala Wijewardena was among the accused in the murder trial among others but she was later acquitted for lack of evidence.

But it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was a conspiracy to murder the Premier. It was clearly a case of the right wing coup and behind it were forces that opposed the nationalization policies.

The political scenario that followed was almost anarchic and the caretaker Premier Dahanayake sacked the Cabinet Ministers of his predecessor and appointed a motley crew as a Cabinet with defeated politicians and others.

He formed his own political party with these dubious characters and contested the General election of 1960 March. The anarchic situation that followed resulted in hung Parliament and the Prime Minister losing his own electorate.

The next coup organized by a pro-western, anti-national group of Police and Armed Forces officers came in January 1962. The coup suspects included Col F.C. de Saram, retired Captain of the Navy Royce de Mel, Lt Col Jesudasan, Col Maurice de Mel, and police officers C.C. (Jungle) Dissanayake, Sydney de Zoysa, John Pulle, L. C. Jirasinghe. There was one civil servant Douglas Liyanage. Their plot was to arrest the Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike, her ministers and left political leaders to overthrow the Government and set up a military dictatorship.

However among the police top brass who were enlisted in the coup was Superintendent of Police Stanley Senanayake but on the night of the coup became restless. His wife Maya Senanayake found her husband tense and on an edge walking up and down the veranda of their home and she insisted on his telling her what was worrying him.

Though he refused her at first, finally he told her about the coup that was to take place in another few hours. Maya Senanayake got in touch with her father Dr.P.de S. Kularatne who was a member of Parliament in the Government of Mrs. Bandaranaike. Dr Kularatne immediately informed Bandaranaike about the impending coup.

When the coup plotters came to Temple Trees to arrest the Premier they were confronted by a detachment of the Army. They were disarmed and a team of Crown Counsel of the Attorney General’s Department got their statements recorded. They were tried at a Trial at Bar hearing and were found guilty of treason and sentenced to jail.

However the coup plotters appealed to the Privy Council in England that reversed the verdict of the Trial at Bar on a technical point, stating that the Criminal Justice Commission Law under which they were prosecuted was enacted after the commission of the offence and hence could not take retrospective effect.

When the next UNP Government came to power J. R. Jayewardene who was the State Minister provided employment to all the coup suspects in positions of the Government. One of the suspect civil servants Douglas Liyanage was appointed Information Director while another suspect Felix who was the Income Tax Commissioner was also reinstated.

During the coup trial evidence a nom de guerre of a politician Shelly who had given his blessings to the coup was mentioned and most people believed that it was a reference to the then UNP leader Dudley Senanayake.

However politicians and analysts of the time ruled out Dudley being involved. Therefore when the coup plotters were reinstated by the UNP Government of 1965 it became more than evident that some powerful person of that Government was the force behind the coup.