Ranasinghe Premadasa
Ranasinghe Premadasa was the third
President of Sri Lanka from 2 January 1989 to 1 May 1993. Before that, he served as the Prime Minister in the government headed by J. R. Jayewardene from 6 February 1978 to 1 January 1989. He was awarded Sri Lanka's highest award to a civilian Sri Lankabhimanya in 1986 by President Junius Richard Jayewardene, the first to receive in Sri Lankan history. He was assassinated in Colombo in a suicide bombing by the LTTE.
Early life
R. Premadasa was born on 23 June 1924 at Dias Place, Colombo 11, to the family of Richard Ranasinghe of Kosgoda and Jayasinghe Arachchige Ensina Hamine of Batuwita, Horana. R. Premadasa was the oldest of five children, three sisters, and one brother.He received his primary education at Harvard Girls’ School, Dam Street, Colombo, post primary education at St. Lorenz's College, Skinner's Road South and his secondary education at St. Joseph's College, Colombo. While attending school, he attended the Hewavitharana Daham Pasala. He completed his education at St. Joseph's College, during the Le Goc era. He satisfied all the requirements for registering at the University of London for higher studies. However, he gave up this opportunity to engage in higher studies and chose path of social service for the welfare of the poor and down- trodden.
He, the architect of the Sri Sucharitha Movement, a volunteers organisation with the objectives of uplifting the economic, social and
spiritual development of the low income people living in shanty areas of the capital. He was the full-time organizer of the community development project of the area in 1939. These youth who enrolled in his development movement refrained from taking liquor and avoided smoking and gambling. Premadasa too was a teetotaler. He became the first non-Govigama politician to reach to the highest levels in democratic, post-independence Sri Lanka.
Early political career
Allying with A. E. Goonesinghe, the founder leader of the Ceylon Labour movement, Premadasa started his political career in 1949 joining the Labour Party.Colombo Municipal Council
In 1950 he was elected to the Colombo Municipal Council as a member of San Sebastian's Ward. Having realized limited future prospects in the Labour Party in the mid 1950s, he supported Sir John Kotelawala's move to remove LSSP Mayor of Colombo, Dr N. M. Perera. In 1955, he succeeded T. Rudra as Deputy Mayor and joined the United National Party in 1956 following the successful removal of Dr N. M. Perera as Mayor of Colombo in February 1956. From the United National Party, Premadasa contested the 1956 general election from the Ruwanwella electorate and lost to Dr N. M. Perera. Following his defeat, he work for the party reorganization under Dudley Senanayake and served as the secretary of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Buddhist Council appointed by the government to organize the 2500th Buddha Jayanthi celebrations.The following year he joined the protest march to Kandy on October 3, which had been organized by J. R. Jayewardene. This march was disrupted at Imbulgoda by thugs led by S. D. Bandaranayake. He was elected the third Member of Parliament from Colombo Central in the March 1960 general election. The short lived Dudley Senanayake government fell in three months and in the July 1960 general election that followed he polled forth in the three member constituency of Colombo Central. In 1961, he was elected Member for the Cinnamon Gardens Ward in the Colombo Municipal Council and served till 1965.
Minister of Local Government
He successfully contested the Colombo Central electorate in the 1965 general election, he was appointed Chief Government Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to M. Tiruchelvam, Minister of Local Government. When Tiruchelvam resigned in 1968, after the Federal Party left Dudley Senanayake's government, Premadasa was promoted as Minister of Local Government and became a member of Senanayake's cabinet. During his tenure he instituted a bridges programme using pre stressed concrete components and created the Maligawatta Housing Scheme. Premadasa turned Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia, into a public corporation - the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation on 5 January 1967.Part of his political program was shelter for the poor, after the United Nations declared a Year of Shelter. Other policies included Jana Saviya, the instrument he used to help the poor, a foster parents scheme, the Gam Udawa project with which he tried to stir up the stupor in the villages, the mobile secretariat whereby he took the central government bureaucracy to the peasants, the Tower Hall Foundation for drama and music, and the pension schemes he initiated for the elder artistes. On the economic front, the garment industry project that he initiated became a forerunner in earning foreign exchange and provision of employment in the villages.
Opposition
In the following 1970 general election, he was elected first Member of Parliament for Colombo Central and sat in the opposition with J.R. Jayewardene, the Leader of the Opposition. Premadasa was appointed Chief Opposition Whip. Further, he was elected chairman of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth Inter- Parliamentary Association held in Australia. In the meantime, he was member of the Constituent Assembly which drafted the constitution of 1972.Prime Minister
Premadasa was elected first Member of Parliament for Colombo Central in the general election in 1977 and became the Leader of the House and the Minister of Local Government. In addition he became the Deputy Leader of the UNP. When J.R. Jayewardene became the first Executive President of the country, Minister Premadasa became the Prime Minister on February 23, 1978.Presidency
He was elected second Executive President of the country when late J. R. Jayewardene stepped down, and led the UNP to victory at the general election held in 1989. The country faced both a civil war in the north and a communist insurgency in the south at the time, both key issues Premadasa concentrated on, with particularly ruthless actions against the insurgents. The security forces brutally put down the revolt and killed many of its leaders.Premadasa also concentrated on a grassroots-level economic development drive, focusing on the provision of housing, poverty alleviation and the upliftment of the poor. He encouraged the building of model villages with clean water, transport infrastructure, schools and health centers. He encouraged the establishment of small-scale industries in poor areas by giving factory owners low-interest loans and a share in textile quotas for the United States and Europe. The Gam Udāwa programme is one of his best-known achievements in this area, along with the Janasaviya programme that is today part of the Samurdhi scheme. His proposal to declare 1987 as the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless was unanimously accepted at the 37th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
with Raja Elephant
His handling of the country's civil war was less successful. In the north, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were facing off against the Indian Peace-Keeping Force- the Indian presence on the island was unpopular, and Premadasa requested India to pull out its troops. In order to force the IPKF to leave the island, he authorized a clandestine operation to supply arms to LTTE, a collusion that came to light in the report published by the Sri Lankan Presidential Commission to inquire into the 1992 assassination of Lieutenant General Denzil Kobbekaduwa. While the IPKF was recalled by New Delhi in 1990, the government's war with the LTTE resumed, beginning Eelam War II, which ended in a stalemate five years later. The 1990 massacre of Sri Lankan Police officers, which occurred after the policemen were asked to surrender to the LTTE in Batticaloa at Premadasa's request, was later established to have been performed with the same weapons he had supplied them.
In September 1991, Premadasa faced an impeachment in parliament led by his two formidable rivals in the UNP, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. He defeated it by adjourning Parliament and the Speaker Mohamed dismissed the impeachment stating a lack of signatures after several of the parliamentarians who supported it withdrew their support after facing threats. He then expelled Athulathmudali and Dissanayake from the party, who then joined to form the Democratic United National Front.
In 1992, he changed the country's name in English from Sri to Shri Lanka on the advice of soothsayers, who predicted it would improve the country's fortunes. The spelling was restored after his assassination in 1993.
Assassination
Ranasinghe Premadasa was killed along with 17 others on May 1, Saturday, 1993, around 12.45 p.m. during UNP's May day rally in Colombo, by an LTTE suicide bomber. The explosion took place at Armour Street-Grandpass Junction in Hulftsdorp, Colombo while President Premadasa was unofficially supervising the procession as it was heading towards the Galle Face Green from Sugathadasa Stadium. The suicide bomber was later identified as Kulaveerasingam Veerakumar alias 'Babu', a close friend of the President's valet E. M. P. Mohideen. He rode a bicycle towards the President, left it near the President's Range Rover and walked towards the President when security personnel attempted to stop him. Despite this, Mohideen allowed him to get close to the President, when Veerakumar detonated the explosive device. The site of the explosion was cleaned within hours before a proper investigation was conducted. The May Day parade continued even after the explosion for some time.Another 38 people were injured in the bombing including seven who were seriously wounded. An island-wide curfew was imposed hours after the assassination. Prime minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga sworn in as the new acting-president in the afternoon. The government did not announce the death of President Premadasa until 6 p.m. local time when state television Rupavahini broadcast a tape of BBC's report of the incident. A period of national mourning was announced until the funeral. Police claimed that they recovered the severed head of a young man suspected to be the bomber, which found to have a cyanide suicide capsule, bearing LTTE tradecraft in his mouth.