Donald Hewagama
| Brigadier Donald Hewagama | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Payagala Kalutara |
| Allegiance |
 Sri Lanka |
| Service/branch | Sri Lanka Army Judge Advocate General (Sri Lanka) |
| Rank | Brigadier |
Brigadier Donald Hewagama (also known as Donald Danister Hewagama) was Sri Lanka's first Judge Advocate General (Sri Lanka).[1]
Early life
He was born on 22 October 1926 in Payagala 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 J. R. Jayewardene, the President of Sri Lanka in the 1977 government.
He was educated at Nalanda College Colombo and was a cadet of the school cadet platoon, member of College Literary Association, leader of the college debating team. He was a graduate from the University of Ceylon and took oaths as an Advocate later after passing out from Ceylon Law College.[2]
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 with regard to the assassination attempt of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranayake, the then Prime Minister, a coup planned within the Sri Lanka Army.
He died on the 18th of December 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 29 July 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 their motherland than disarmament of insurgents. On 30 July 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-martial ed.
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. The 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 Tillekeratne.
As a 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 a Military Officer
He was commissioned as a Lieutenant colonel in the Sri Lanka Army in the highest rank an officer ever to be commissioned 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 Bandaranaike 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 Headquarters in Colombo to be rehabilitated and later released.
As a 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.
References
- "Vijitha Rohana: Courage of his convictions". Nation. 2007-07-29.