EPDP’s Devananda and missing weapon supplied by Army

After assassinating the foremost Sri Lankan Tamil political leader and onetime Opposition leader Appapillai Amirthalingam and ex-Jaffna MP Vettivelu Yogeswaran, in July 1989, in Colombo, the LTTE declared those who stepped out of line, thereby deviated from policy of separate state, would be killed.

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Ex-Nallur MP Murugesu Sivasithamparam was shot and wounded in the same incident. In 1994, the LTTE ordered the boycott of the general election but EPDP leader Douglas Devananda contested. His party won nine seats in the Jaffna peninsula. The LTTE also banned the singing of the national anthem and the hoisting of the national flag at government and public functions in Tamil areas. Devananda defied this ban, too.

ment of the EPDP in support of the military, the government ensured that it got recognised as a registered political party. The government also recognised PLOTE, EPRLF and TELO as political parties. President Premedasa hadn't been bothered about their past or them carrying weapons or accusations ranging from extrajudicial killings to extortions and abductions.

Some of those who found fault with President Premadasa for granting political recognition for those groups conveniently forgot his directive to then Election Commissioner, the late Chandrananda de Silva, to recognise the LTTE, in early Dec. 1989.

The writer was among several local and foreign journalists, invited by the late LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham, to the Colombo Hilton, where he made the announcement. Chain-smoking British passport holder Balasingham declared proudly that their emblem would be a Tiger in a red flag of rectangular shape. Neither Premadasa, nor the late Chandrananda de Silva, had any qualms about the PFLT (political wing of the LTTE) receiving political recognition in spite of it being armed. The LTTE received political recognition a couple of months before Velupillai Prabhakaran resumed Eelam War II.

Devananda, in his capacity as the EPDP Leader, exploited the situation to his advantage. Having left Sri Lanka for India in May 1986, about a year before the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord, Devananda returned to the country in May 1990, a couple of months after India ended its military mission here.