Sri Lanka, 1966 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 17 February 1966, corresponding to the alleged 1966 Ceylonese coup, derisively called the Bathroom coup, against the government of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake. Senanayake's United National Party had won the March 1965 election, ousting Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and his government began rolling back some pro-Sinhalese policies, to the resentment of certain factions in the security forces. While Senanayake was in Washington in February 1966 for medical treatment, the police, following an investigation led by CID director Ana Seneviratne, arrested several army non-commissioned officers, a retired civil servant and a politically connected Buddhist monk on the basis of an alleged plot to overthrow the government.
Army commander Major General Richard Udugama, a relative of Bandaranaike, was arrested later, on 7 July 1966. The prosecution collapsed when the Trial-at-Bar jury unanimously acquitted all the accused for lack of evidence, and the episode discredited the Senanayake administration.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
78002171966
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Senanayake's government survived; the accused were all acquitted and the case damaged the administration's reputation.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
Times of India
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →