London Exhibition of Universal Adult Franchise

The inmates of the refugee camps displayed resilience, which was remarkable.

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They elected leaders within the camps and took responsibility for various camp functions, like communal yoking, sharing water between cooking and bathing and between men and women and did a bit of guard duty themselves since they were not yet confident of their military guards at the gates.

The stories I listened to at that time, full of pain and loss and fear, were beyond belief.

A week after my appointment as Commissioner-General, I decided to go to Jaffna and meet as many people as possible who had fled to give them my personal apology for what had happened and to assure them that the government would do all it could to give them restitution for the damage caused to them and their lives. I knew it was a hopeless and possibly futile gesture but something told me I owed them this collective act of seeking forgiveness. I stayed with Devanesan Nesiah, whose father had taught me 'Government' at St Thomas' in the late 1940s. He was the government agent and put me up at the Old Park Residency which I knew well from my cadet days in Jaffna in the early 1950s.

Everyone who could come was invited to the meeting at the Town Hall.

Hundreds were already there when I arrived, and more came in - some still wearing the bandages which covered their wounds. I said a few words of apology and told them that I had come on behalf of the government to offer them whatever they needed. Many of them were government servants who came up with a long list of requests for leave, for distress loans, and so on.

After the meeting, I spent the rest of the day talking with the staff and students at the university. It was late at night when I returned to the Old Park. My personal security officers had some anxious moments when they thought my car was being followed but I knew nothing of that until later. The loyal Raja Wickremasinghe, who doubled up as my bodyguard, spent some sleepless hours outside my door that night.