220
JAYEWARDENE, JUNIUS
Poland, arrested Walesa and other Solidarity leaders, and clamped down on dissent. Communist control of Poland was resumed within months, and in July 1983 martial law was lifted. Jaruzelski, meanwhile, attempted to improve the nation’s flagging economy through minor tinkering, but to no avail. He then resigned as prime minister, to assume the largely ceremonial position of president, while directing defense and party matters. However, he completely lost control of events after 1988 when Soviet premier MIKHAIL GORBACHEV allowed noncommunist parties to form. Sensing the game was up, Jaruzelski entered negotiations with both Solidarity and church officials to establish a timetable for free elections. In April 1989 the government granted Solidarity legal status, and the first free elections in 50 years saw noncommunists swept to power under TADEUSZ MAZOWIECKI. Jaruzelski managed to retain the presidency by a single parliamentary vote. However, in December 1990 he too was ousted by Walesa and retired from office, the last communist leader of Poland. Since that time Jaruzelski has remained in seclusion, amid demands to try him for imposing martial law. In October 1996 the Polish legislature defeated those motions, but in May 2001 a court ordered his trial for the deaths of workers killed in 1970. Jaruzelski, old and infirm, denied any wrongdoing, and so far, has not been convicted. He remains a controversial figure but an essential player in the transition from a totalitarian system to a democratic one. Further Reading Berger, Manfred E. Jaruzelski. New York: Econ Verlag, 1990. Jaruzelski, Wojciech. Jaruzelski, Prime Minister of Poland: Selected Speeches. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Kramer, Mark. “Jaruzelski, the Soviet Union, and the Imposition of Martial Law in Poland: New Light on the Mystery of December 1981.” International History Project Bulletin no. 11 (1998): 5–14. Michta, Andrew A. Red Eagle: The Army in Polish Politics, 1944–1988. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1990. Pelinka, Anton. Politics of the Lesser Evil: Leadership, Democracy, and Jaruzelski’s Poland. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999. Sharman, Jason C. Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Jayewardene, Junius (1906–1996) president of Sri Lanka Junius Richard Jayewardene was born in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), on September 17, 1906, the son of a supreme court justice. He passed through the Ceylon Law College in 1932 and commenced a successful legal practice. However, in 1933 Jayewardene entered politics by joining the Ceylon National Congress (CNC), which agitated for independence from Great Britain. By dint of hard work he rose to party secretary in 1939. Jayewardene was elected to the island’s legislature and, after Ceylon became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth in 1947, he switched over to the newly formed United National Party (UNP). For many years thereafter, island politics were dominated by the figure of D. S. Senanayake, who appointed Jayewardene as his finance minister. He continued in this capacity when Dudley Senanayake, the leader’s son, became prime minister. However, because Ceylon’s economy was overwhelmingly dependent on tea and rubber exports, Jayewardene was repeatedly forced to cut back on government subsidies as market prices plunged. The island was in an extreme recession by 1956, when national elections were won by the rival Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) under S. W. R. D. BANDARANAIKE. Over the next decade Jayewardene reorganized the party, and by 1965 Senanayake returned as prime minister. Five years later the SLFP revived under Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and the UNP was reduced to a mere 17 seats in the legislature. Jayewardene again set about reorganizing the party and, following the death of Senanayake in 1973, succeeded him as party leader. He continued on as head of the opposition until 1977, when the UNP won a resounding electoral victory and Jayewardene became prime minister. Jayewardene’s first political priority was to discard the Westminister parliamentary system in favor of a French presidential system, accomplished in February 1978. His constitutional reforms mandated that the presidency become a strong executive office that combined the functions of head of state with head of government. This meant that chief executives would be chosen directly by a public vote. New elections were held in October 1982 and Jayewardene won handily. Thus strengthened he set about reversing the decades-old socialist economic policies enacted by his predecessors. Jayewardene was a strong exponent of free-market principles and undertook measures to liberalize the market