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Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration (TAFII) was a task force deployed by the Sri Lanka Army from 1963 from 1981 to counter illegal immigration from South India. It was the first field formation deployed by the Ceylon Army and had its headquarters at Palaly. [1]
TAFII originated from "Operations Monty" named after then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Affairs and Defense, Major Montague Jayawickrama in 1952 to stop illegal immigration of Indian Tamils repatriated to India after they were refused citizenship by the government of Ceylon following the Ceylon Citizenship Act and subsequent legislation. Formed under the command of Lt. Colonel H. W. G. Wijeyekoon, a detachment of the Ceylon Army was deployed to patrol the 72 mile stretch of coastline starting at Palagamunai, nine miles north of Mannar, right round the island of Mannar, and terminating at Achchankulam, twelve miles south of Mannar to stop human smugglers. This military aid to the civil powers operation started in support of the police which lacked the numbers to cover the large area. [2]
In July 1960, Sirima Bandaranaike was appointed the first female prime minister in the world after her party secured a majority in parliament in the July 1960 general election. Her government announced the full operation of the Sinhala Only Act from January 1961, making Sinhala the only official language in the courts of law throughout the country. The Federal Party launched a campaign of civil disobedience in January 1961, beginning in Jaffna with Federal Party members staging a satyagraha on 20 February 1961 at the Jaffna Kachcheri, led by S. J. V. Chelvanayakam. The police baton charged the protesters at the Jaffna Kachcheri after they prevented the Government Agent and Superintendent of Police from leaving the Kachcheri. Several Tamil MPs were injured. At the end of the day, Chelvanayakam issued a press statement saying that it was "a great day for the Tamil-speaking people of Ceylon. This was the day we resorted to direct action to win our freedom". The protests soon spread to other parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces and Bandaranaike accused the Federal Party of trying to establish a separate state. On Bandaranaike request the Governor General of Ceylon declared a state of emergency under the provisions of the Public Security Ordinance in the Northern Province and dispatched the 1st Battalion, Ceylon Light Infantry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Udugama, who was soon appointed Garrison Commander, Troops Jaffna. The government ordered the Army to clear the satyagraha and arrested the protesters. The Federal Party was banned. [3] [4]
According to the former Government Agent of Jaffna District Neville Jayaweera, the Ceylonese civil servant N.Q. Dias, who had been appointed Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs and Defence in June 1961, had anticipated that the Tamil population would resort to armed struggle in response forceful suppression of their protests against the implementation of Sinhala as the official language of administration and courts without any concession to the Tamil Language. N.Q. Dias, a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist who had assisted the formation of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and its landslide victory in the 1956 general election which led to S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's appointment as prime minister, exerted powerful influence over the government of Prime Minister Bandaranaike and played a significant role in the adoption of Sinhala as the official language of administration and courts. [5] [6] To contain a future Tamil revolt with the support of India and to disguise the true intent, N.Q. Dias used the issues of illegal immigration from South India and smuggling as pretexts to establish permanent military camps in the Northern Province. He appointed Neville Jayaweera as the Government Agent (GA) of Jaffna District in August 1963 and assigned him with the task of assisting Lieutenant Colonel Sepala Attygalle in setting up the Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration. [7] Describing his assigned task, Jayaweera recounted:
As for my role as the GA of Jaffna, Dias said that while facilitating the construction of the proposed military camps girdling the Northern Province, I should be “unrelenting” towards Tamil demands, and wherever possible, “force confrontations” with them and establish the government's “undisputed ascendancy”. He emphasized that the best way to engineer the government's ascendancy was by enforcing the Sinhala Only policy at any cost [...] He was of the view that the government had failed so far to deal with the Tamils forcefully enough and saw me as the answer to the problem! Obviously, N.Q. Dias was seeing me as an administrative Rottweiler to be let loose within the sheep pen of protesting Tamil satyagrahis! [8]
In 1963, Operations Monty was formally renamed as Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration as a permanent formation in support of Royal Ceylon Navy coastal patrols and police operations. Initially army contribution was known as "Army Force M" consisted of an infantry battalion with support units based in the coast of Mannar. The task force had its headquarters at Palaly and had units deployed from Mollikulam point to Kokilai. There were army camps in Silavathurai, Thalladi, Talaimannar, Pooneryn, Valvettithurai, Madagala, Thondamannar, Mullaitivu and Kokilai. In addition several smaller detachments of 5-10 soldiers each were located. [2]
After 1972, TAFII shifted its focus to counter insurgency operations with the raise of the Tamil militancy. It was disbanded in 1980 with the onset of the Sri Lankan Civil War and was replaced by the Task Force 4 Northern Command. [2]
Lieutenant General Denzil Lakshman Kobbekaduwa, RWP, RSP, VSV, USP was a senior Sri Lankan Army officer who served in the 1971 Insurrection and the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Major General Vanigamuni Indrajith Vijeyakumar Mendis Wimalaratne, RWP, RSP, VSV, USP was a senior Sri Lanka Army officer. One of the most distinguished field commanders in Sri Lanka, Wimalaratne raised the Gajaba Regiment, he commanded the 1st Brigade during the Vadamarachchi Operation, he commanded the Amphibious Task Force Commander during Operation Balavegaya and was the Commander Security Forces – Jaffna at the time of his death in a land mine explosion at Point Arali in the Kayts Island while making preparations to re-capture Jaffna.
The 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Ceylon, also known as the 58 riots, refer to the first island-wide ethnic riots and pogrom to target the minority Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon after it became an independent dominion from Britain in 1948. The riots lasted from 22 May until 29 May 1958 although sporadic disturbances happened even after the declaration of emergency on 27 May 1958. The estimates of the murders range, based on recovered bodies, from 158 to 1,500. Although most of the victims were Tamils, Sinhalese and their property were also affected by retaliatory attacks by Tamil mobs throughout the Batticaloa and Jaffna districts. As the first full-scale race riot in the country in over forty years, the events of 1958 shattered the trust the communities had in one another and led to further polarisation.
The 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka followed the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalistic Tamil United Liberation Front won a plurality of minority Sri Lankan Tamil votes. In the elections, the party stood for secession. An official government estimate put the death toll at 125, whereas other sources estimate that around 300 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese mobs. Human rights groups, such as the UTHR-J, accused the newly elected UNP-led government of orchestrating the violence.
Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam was a Ceylonese lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament. He was the founder and leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and a political leader of the Ceylon Tamil community for more than two decades. Chelvanayakam has been described as a father figure to Ceylon's Tamils, to whom he was known as "Thanthai Chelva".
General Deshamanya Don Sepala Attygalle, was a Sri Lankan army officer, civil servant and diplomat. The longest serving Commander of the Sri Lankan Army (1967–1977), he went on to serve as the Permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
The 1962 Ceylonese coup d'état attempt was a failed military coup d'état planned in Ceylon. A group of Christian officers in the military and police planned to topple the government of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike during the night of 27 January 1962. Organised by Colonel F. C. de Saram, Colonel Maurice De Mel,, Rear Admiral Royce de Mel, C.C. Dissanayake, Sydney de Zoysa and Douglas Liyanage, it was to take place in the night of 27 January 1962, but was called off as the government gained information in the afternoon and initiated arrests of the suspected coup leaders before the coup was carried out.
The Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact was an agreement signed between the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and the leader of the main Tamil political party in Sri Lanka S. J. V. Chelvanayakam on July 26, 1957. It advocated the creation of a series of regional councils in Sri Lanka as a means to giving a certain level of autonomy to the Tamil people of the country, and was intended to solve the communal disagreements that were occurring in the country at the time.
Elangai Murugesu Vijayaretnam Naganathan was a Ceylon Tamil physician, politician, senator and Member of Parliament.
The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom, also known as the Gal Oya riots, was the first organised pogrom against Sri Lankan Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon. It began with anti-Tamil rioting in Colombo, followed by anti-Sinhalese rioting in Batticaloa. The worst of the violence took place in the Gal Oya valley, where local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya Development Board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils. It is estimated that over 150 people, mostly Tamils, had died during the violence. The police and army were eventually able to bring the situation under control.
Security Forces Headquarters – Jaffna (SFHQ-J) is a regional command of the Sri Lanka Army, that is responsible for the operational deployment and command all army units stationed in and around the Jaffna Peninsula in the Northern Province.
Vallipuram Nallathamby Navaratnam was a Sri Lankan Tamil lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament.
Major General Deshamanya Alexander Richard Udugama, was a Sri Lankan soldier, politician and diplomat. Former Army Commander (1964–1966), he was elected as Member of Parliament for Matale from 1970 to 1977 and served as Sri Lankan Ambassador to Iraq from 1979 to 1982. He was accused of an alleged coup d'état in 1966.
The 1966 alleged Ceylonese coup d'état attempt was an alleged military coup planned in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The commander of the army and several military personnel were arrested. They were later acquitted of a plot to overthrow the legally elected government.
Neil Quintus Dias, commonly known as N.Q. Dias, was a Sri Lankan civil servant. A career officer of the Ceylon Civil Service, he was the Permanent Secretary of Defence and Foreign Affairs from 1960 to 1965, serving as the de facto Chief Adviser to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and as Ceylon's High Commissioner to India from 1970 to 1972.
Chellappah Suntharalingam was a Sri Lankan Tamil academic, politician, Member of Parliament and government minister.
General Anuruddha Leuke Ratwatte, frequently referred to as Anuruddha Ratwatte, was a Sri Lankan soldier and politician. He was a Cabinet Minister and Deputy Minister of Defence.
Vallipuram Ponnambalam was a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and teacher. He was a prominent leader of the left-wing in northern Sri Lanka. He served as the secretary of the Jaffna District Committee of the Communist Party of Ceylon. Ponnambalam was noted for his 'clean image' as a political leader.
The Eksath Bhikkhu Peramuna was an umbrella organization consisting of two associations of Buddhist monks founded in 1956 in the Dominion of Ceylon to promote Sinhalese Buddhist interests in politics. It campaigned against the United National Party (UNP) and helped to bring the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna to power in the 1956 general election. It became defunct following the assassination of Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.
Brigadier Maurice Anthony Jayaweera was a senior Sri Lanka Army officer. He served as the Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army and the Commander, Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration.