Donald Hewagama

Donald Danister Hewagama was the Judge Advocate General to the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka.

He was born in Payagala in Kalutara, southern Sri Lanka, and was the son of Arthur Hewagama (grandson of Hewagamage H. Appuhamy) and Mabel Alexandria Wijesinghe Jayewardene, who was the cousin of Junius Richard Jayewardene, the President of Sri Lanka in the 1977 government.

He was a graduate from the University of Ceylon and took oaths as an Advocate later. He joined the Legal Draftsmen Department of Sri Lanka and in 1967 was appointed as the Judge Advocate General to the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka permanently by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. This appointment was endorsed by the Opposition in Parliament of Sri Lanka at that time headed by Mr. J.R. Jayawardene, and he served till 1982 October 22 as the first Sri Lankan to hold this position.

At the start of his career he presided over the court martial held in regard to the assassination attempt of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranayake, the then Prime Minister, a coup planned within the Sri Lanka Army.

He died in 2009.

Notability

When the Indo – Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed by then Prime Minister of India and then President of Sri Lanka in Colombo on July 29, 1987, it was agreed to keep the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in their barracks and Indian Peace Keeping Force to disarm the insurgents who demanded a separate state within the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, the land which was shared by its inhabitants for the known history of time. Sri Lankans as a whole saw this as a foreign domination of there motherland than disarmament of insurgents. On July 30 1987 an honor guardsman, a sailor who was ordered to present his arms to the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in front of the Presidents House hit the Indian Prime Minister with his unloaded rifle. Obvious instantaneous reaction of the world on this diabolical act was disgrace and dishonor. The sailor was apprehended and court-martialed. When the offender was brought in front of the grand panel of military judges no one was there to defend this helpless man who assaulted the commanding chief of one of the world’s mightiest armies. Now retired Brigadier Donald D. Hewagama who had a distinguished carrier in the Sri Lanka Armed Forces as the Judge Advocate General to the Sri Lankan Army, Navy and the Air Force had a different view. He thought “This feeble sailor armed with an unloaded rifle stood for his land of birth and for all of its people and symbolically defended it from foreign invasion.” Brigadier Donald D. Hewagama volunteered to defend the sailor with the help of former speaker of the Sri Lanka Parliament, Hon. Stanley Thilakaratne.

Early Life

He was born in October 22 1926 as the first offspring to his father Arthur Hewagama and mother Violet Mabel Alexandria Wijesinghe Jayewardene. His paternal grand father was H.H Appuhamy a renowned business mogul and a philanthropist who came from the south with a few coins in his pocket to become a business magnate who stretched his wings in the area of hauling commodities from the Colombo Port to surrounding warehouses using his own fleet of bullock carts. His maternal grand mother named him Donald after a then prominent individual in Payagala in southern Sri Lanka, “Donald Gunathilaka”. A remarkable incident that outline during his infancy was one rainy night during monsoon season in Payagala in southern Sri Lanka when there were no prominent accessible roads and the only transportation was a bullock cart, he fell hopelessly sick. His mother summoned a bullock cart and climbed it from the back with her infant son as there was no other way to save his life than taking him to the hospital in the nearest town traveling a formidable distance even under that cruel weather. As they rode only light shown there path was a hurricane lantern swinging violently from its moors side to side due endless gusts of wind and the rain. Seeing the lantern mother wished “As my chilled hardly breathe, if this lantern blows away so my son will leave me. If not as strong as the flame that can hold this mighty wind away and show us our way he will prevail and he will enlighten this world with radiance of wisdom” Suddenly a strong gust of wind threw the lantern from its moors to the ground and the mother closed her eyes. She felt the cart came to a stand still then she reluctantly opened her eyes to see in disbelief the lantern shining with light laying on the ground and the driver on his way to pick it up.

As an Academic

He was admitted to Grade Four at Nalanda Vidyalaya in Colombo (now Nalanda College) at the age of ten years after completing his nursery education at Clifton Girls School at Maligakanda. Few of his distinguished class teachers at Nalanda were Colonel T.N. Munasinghe and Colonel M.C.F. Abeykoon. He was a cadet of the school cadet platoon and was the Honey. Secretary of the College Literary Association. He was the leader of the college debate team and a school cadet. He and his classmate Mr. B.B. Perera jointly organized the annual cricket match between Ananda College and Nalanda Vidyalaya in 1947. This big cricket match was not played for several years during the Second World War because the British Commonwealth Troops had occupied the college playground. He was an undergraduate of the University of Ceylon during the years 1949 to 1952.

As an Lawyer Having passed out of Ceylon Law College as an Advocate he apprenticed under Advocate H.W. Jayawardena QC and Advocate A.C. Gunaratne. He took oaths as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Ceylon in 1958 and functioned as an Assistant Legal Draftsman in the Legal Draftsmen’s Department from 1964 to 1967.

As an Military Officer He was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Sri Lanka Army in the highest rank an officer ever to be commisiioned in its history. He functioned as the Judge Advocate General to the Armed Forces from 1967 to 1981. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel and then to Brigadier in his tenure in the Sri Lanka Army. During insurrection of JVP against then Sirimavo Bandaranayake Government, Brigadier Donald D Hewagama was given an assignment to overlook the prevailing administration setup in the north central area of Sri Lanka and was sent with a convoy of armed military vehicles and on his way back from the destination he sighted a gathering of youth detained by the soldiers under emergency law in a road crossing near Warakapola area in the North Western province of the country. He immediately ordered his convoy to stop and got off from his car and held an inquiry on the spot. He found that some of these children who were not even in their teens have been used as scapegoats by the ruthless terrorists to carry their letters. He pardoned some of these children and brought them down to the Army Head Quarters in Colombo to be rehabilitated and later released.

As an Judicial Officer After his retirement from the Army at the age of 55 years he functioned as a Judicial Officer in the Sri Lanka Judiciary. Brigadier Donald D Hewagama has functioned as the Judge at the trial of the then Member of Parliament for Hewaheta for the offence of smuggling gold bars to Sri Lanka. A notable incident that the citizens under his judicial area still talk about is how he solved the case of a stolen calf. Inspired buy the famous Chinese folktale Circle of Chalk (later translated into many languages) he ordered two farmers fighting over a little calf to tie there cows to two trees and let the calf to find his own mother, To the amazement of the audience the hungry calf headed straight to his mother.