May first (1) a workers day as well as a day of remembrance of President R. Premadasa !

Sri Lanka’s third and the second executive President
Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated by a LTTE
suicide bomber on May 1, 1993.
Late President R.Premadasa was the first Lankan leader
to become the second executive President from an
ordinary family background unlike his predecessors
whether the Prime Ministers or Presidents who had come
from elitist families and had their education at famous
schools and in the universities in the Island as well as
abroad.
R.Premadasa first entered into politics from United
National party (UNP) and established his political career
wining in the Local Government polls in the Colombo
district.
R. Premadasa was an ardent supporter of former Lankan
Prime Minister Dudley Senanyake and he toiled hard in his

campaigns to strengthen United national Party along with
Dudley Senanayake’s successor J.R. Jeyawardene.
Later he became a Parliamentarian and held the
Ministerial portfolio as Minister of Housing.
In 1977 when the UNP came to power with a massive
victory, J.R.Jeyawardene became the first executive
President of Sri Lanka and R.Premadasa became the
Prime Minister in the J.R.Jeyawardene’s cabinet. The
cabinet under the executive Presidency of
J.R.Jeyewardene comprised several promising young
politicians such as Lalith Athulath Mudali, Gamini
Dissanayake and Tyrone Fernando along with more
studious politicians with good academic and professional
background.
In 1988 after the retirement of President J.R.Jeyawardene
from politics, R.Premadasa won the presidential election,
defeating the SLFP leader, Sirimavo Bandaranaike who
was the first woman Prime Minister in the world.
On assuming office as the president, Premadasa was
confronted with the formidable challenges of coping with
the separatist Tamil separatist war in the north under the
leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
and the insurgency of the Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP)
led by its founder Rohana Wijeweera in the South.

Rohana Wijeweera was later killed along with his
thousands of followers when President R.Premadasa had
confronted the JVP with his iron fist.
While he succeeded in containing the JVP, he had dealt
with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and even
became the first Lankan leader to open up political
negotiations directly with the LTTE.
Despite the warnings from his predecessor late President
J.R.Jeyawardene late President R.Premadasa had
engaged in talks with the LTTE. The political negotiation
between the LTTE and the Premadasa Government also
led to the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Forces
(IPKF) from Sri Lanka.
However the talks between the LTTE and the Premadasa
Government didn’t last long and collapsed with Tamil
militants succeeding in making the IPKF to withdraw from
the Island.
Premadasa was very much concerned about the
downtrodden and he paid more attention towards building
houses for homeless people.
During the early 1990s domestic and political turbulence in
Sri Lanka increased. On May 1, 1993, President R.
Premadasa died in a brutal assassination carried out by
an LTTE suicide cadre when he was getting ready to go
on a May Day procession along with a large number of his

supporters from his electorate Grand pass towards Galle
Face, Colombo where his party’s May Day rally was
organised with the participation of Indian and Lankan
artistes.
The untimely death of President Ranasinghe Premadasa
had sent shockwaves throughout the Island and the
Tamils living in Colombo also feared of another backlash
similar to the black July unrest in July 1983.
However the entire country was put under red alert
following the assassination of President R.Premadasa in
order to prevent any untoward incidents.
In the meantime political analysts looking into the
assassination of late President Ranasinghe described it as
he invited the problem by trusting too much the hardcore
LTTE despite the warnings from the intelligence agencies
from India as well as in Sri Lanka.
May Day this year will complete the thirty fifth year of late
President R.Premadasa’s death. His death has created a
big vacuum in the politics of the UNP. However he will be
remembered as the leader who was the first to place
tremendous confidence on the LTTE and engaged with
the outfit directly to find peace in the North and East as
well as in the Island.
Political observers also expressed their views that the
LTTE could have very well used the good offices of