යාපනේ පුස්තකාලයට ගිනි තැබුවේ කවුද?
Ivan revisits the burning of the Jaffna Public Library during the 1981 District Development Council election, when the ruling party had made itself a contender in the North. Jaffna believed the police were responsible, and in private talk senior circles pointed to DIG Edward Gunawardena, then in charge there. Ivan recounts a book published some thirty-two years later, a June 2014 article by retired police officer Tassie Seneviratne and Seneviratne’s account to him of a sergeant’s story, and his own inquiry to a retired DIG about Gunawardena’s background.
The best laid plans of government men …
Ten years after Black July, Ivan sets out the official toll of the 1983 riots and records what K. Ganeshalingam, UNP Treasurer and Cyril Mathew’s friend, told him one evening: that the government’s main leaders planned the violence to turn rising Sinhala anger away from themselves, and that UNP men committed election offences in Jaffna in 1981. He explains why he kept the account back for two years.