The same newspaper [The Guardian, 9 Aug. 1983] went on to report the second terrifying aspect of these riots: aside from Tamil homes, there was systematic destruction of shops and commercial and industrial establishments, many of which employed Sinhalese labor, and which were an essential arm of the UNP government’s policy of economic development. Beresford reported that government officials aid in the same briefing session for donor countries: “About 100 industrial plants were severely damaged or destroyed, including 20 garment factories. The cost of industrial reconstruction was estimated at 2,000 million rupees (£55 million). This did not include damaged shops.”

-- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.22.

Around the same time in early August, the New York Times supplemented the information on the scale of the economic destruction: “The shells of [Tamil-owned] businesses line Galle Road, the main waterfront thoroughfare, their scorched signs forlornly advertising the names that marked them for destruction. Lakshmi Mahal, pawnbroker, or Ram Gram stores and florist. … Damage estimates are uncertain and incomplete, but the total economic loss has been placed at $300 million or more, and 150,000 are said to have been rendered jobless. … About 10,000 foreign tourists were here when the trouble started. All but about 1,500 have left.” A significant portion of the jobless included Sinhalese workers, some of whom had participated in the very destruction of their own places of work.

-- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.22-23.

The violence was vicious and bloody. But what distinguished it from many other communal Asian riots was the way that the mob singled out specific business premises. In street after street in Colombo groups of rioters hit only at factories (as well as homes) owned by Tamils. Their careful selectivity is apparent now. In each street individual business premises were burned down, while others alongside stood unscathed. Troops and police (almost exclusively Sinhalese) either joined the rioters or stood idly by. President Jayewardene failed either intentionally or because he lost control to assert his authority quickly enough to stem the damage.

-- from Financial Times, 12 August 1983. (reproduced in “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.66-67.)

Whereas, in the past, communal violence had been sporadic and spontaneous and directed against people, the violence now was not of this nature but clearly directed against property, means of livelihood and production. The aim of the first attacks was destruction only, though looting did follow. However, it seems that the looting was carried out by gangs different to those involved in the destruction. It was reported by many people, including some Sinhalese, that in some instances students from Buddhist schools followed on behind the first rioters ant that some Buddhist monks were seen amongst the gangs.

-- “The Communal Violence in Sri Lanka, July 1983.” Report by LAWASIA, February 1984. Reproduced in its entirety in Sri Lanka: Serendipity under Siege by Patricia Hyndman, 1988. p.12.

Very many of those rendered jobless are Sinhalese. The disaster has not had adverse consequence for the Tamils alone. Thousands of Sinhalese have, as a result of the destruction of Tamil property, suffered severe dislocation in their own lives. For instance very early in the week of violence, 40 Tamil-owned factories around Colombo were reported to have been destroyed with the loss of 25,000 jobs and, after the violence, Mr. Premadasa, the Prime Minister, was reported to have stated that 150,000 jobs had been lost, and that 90% of these jobs belonged to Sinhalese people.

-- “The Communal Violence in Sri Lanka, July 1983.” Report by LAWASIA, February 1984. Reproduced in its entirety in Sri Lanka: Serendipity under Siege by Patricia Hyndman, 1988. p.12.

The losses are still being added up in the statistical department of the central bank, which has sent out teams of accountants and surveyors to do an on-site census of destruction. The preliminary estimate of $150m worth of damage to commercial and residential property — equivalent to about 4% of Sri Lanka’s GNP — is almost certainly too low, because it is based on book value; replacement costs might be five to 10 times higher. It also excludes the value of lost stocks, lost output and lost export orders.

-- from “Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to Its Future”. The Economist. 6 August 1983, pp. 25-26.

Last fortnight’s violence threw another estimated 50,000 people out of work, the majority of them Sinhala, and resulted in a loss of 3 billion Sri Lankan rupees (Rs. 120 crore).

-- from “The Tamil Tragedy” by Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 31 August 1983, pp.14-23.

This July 23, 1983, was the sixth anniversary of Mr. [President] Jayawardene’s rule in Sri Lanka. On the same day, 13 army men were killed in an ambush, allegedly by liberation Tigers or some such terrorists! It is generally known fact that this was a sequel of the rape of 4 Tamils, all inmates of a hostel, by army men and among them 2 committed suicide subsequently. Though this is dismissed by the authorities as a ‘mere story’, there are evidences to show that the rape actually took place and only the culprits concerned were attacked in this ambush!

Mr. Ashish Ray has written in “Sunday”, that “while this (ambush against army men) was probably an important spark that has set off the conflagration, what has not come to light is the possibility of an outrage by soldiers on a girls’ college in Tinnavely in Jaffna in the last week of July.”

-- from Genocide in Sri Lanka, by M.S. Venkatachalam, 1987. p.21.

Some argue that the killing of the thirteen Sinhala soldiers in Jaffna was the cause. This is simply to beg the question. That was not the cause. … When men, Sinhala or Tamil, put on a uniform and acquire the licence to kill, they, themselves, stand the risk of being killed. This has nothing to do with their race. The armed forces are the main form of the state machinery which the government maintains to repress both the Sinhalese and Tamil people. The same Sinhala soldier who is today killing a Tamil in the North and getting shot at in return, will, tomorrow, in the South, gun down a Sinhalese when ordered to as, indeed, was the case in 1971. … Some others argue that the violence against the Tamils was a natural reaction to the cry for a separate state of Eelam. If that was so, why were the poor plantation workers of Indian Tamil origin attacked? They or their leaders never asked for a separate state. … So much for the easy rationalisations. When one sifts the evidence, two factors become very clear. Firstly, it is obvious that, in every area, the attacks were carried out with absolute precision: the attackers were supplied, in advance, with exact details and addresses of all Tamil premises. The systematic nature of the savagery was commented upon widely by foreign eye-witness reporters. Secondly, in every area, eye witnesses identified the looters and arsonists and murderers as government supporters. The fact that the armed forces actively participated in this holocaust, or at best remained inactive, can only be explained by the fact that they were sure of protection.

-- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.69-70

It looks increasingly as though, since July 1983, the mass media has been used directly by the government to spread downright lies and propaganda. For example, the Sun on 25 July reported (on official authority) that the funerals of the soldiers were to be held at Kanatte when the Prime Minister himself was later to say that a decision had been taken against such a move. The result was the massing of angry Sinhalese mobs. J.R. Jayewardene used the media repeatedly to exonerate himself from blame - resorting to quite obvious untruths - he did not find out about the Welikade massacre until it was too late to hold inquests, he did not know about the excesses of his armed forces in Jaffna, but he did know that the pogrom of July 1983 had been part of a left-wing plot.

-- from “Human rights violations in Sri Lanka.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.121.

All reports indicated a great deal of on-going hostility between the armed forces and the civilian population of the northern province. This is document in more detail later in the report in Section IIa xv) and xvi).

The ambush of the 13 soldiers was carried out in this climate of tense hostility. Quite apart from the general animosity which was reported, there were allegations that the ambush was in retaliation to a very recent raping of several Tamil girls by soldiers.

-- “The Communal Violence in Sri Lanka, July 1983.” Report by LAWASIA, February 1984. Reproduced in its entirety in Sri Lanka: Serendipity under Siege by Patricia Hyndman, 1988. p.8.

Violence erupted also in places such as Kandy, Matale, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and Bandarawella. On each of these occasions it followed a similar pattern. The incidents were started off by people coming in from outside the districts, lists were used to identify Tamil property and systematic attacks were made upon it: the local people were then encourage to follow with further depredations.

The uniformity of this pattern has led to allegations that there was considerable organisation behind the events. Many people interviewed were of the opinion that, although the eruption of violence may have been triggered off by the reaction to the ambush of the 13 soldiers, this was only the flash-point and that, had that ambush not occurred, something else would have acted as a catalyst to spark off the violence.

-- “The Communal Violence in Sri Lanka, July 1983.” Report by LAWASIA, February 1984. Reproduced in its entirety in Sri Lanka: Serendipity under Siege by Patricia Hyndman, 1988. p.13.

It has been estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 Tamils were slaughtered in the "Black July" carnage—including 53 young Tamil political detainees lynched in the capital's main prison—and about 150,000 made homeless. Some of these refugees migrated to the north in search of relative safety while others fled across the sea to the Tamil province in south India. Numerous eyewitness accounts of the July 1983 atrocities suggest that UNP activists organized and led the killings and the arson of Tamil homes and business, and that in many places police and even military personnel joined the rioters. President Jayewardene failed to condemn the violence or express sympathy to the survivors; instead he blamed Tamils for bringing it upon themselves. The government then proceeded to bar TULF parliamentarians elected in 1977 from participating in parliamentary proceedings.

-- from Contested Lands by Sumantra Bose, 2007. p. 28.

All hotels in Colombo were under ordered from the Government not to allow the journalists use their telex and making a telephone call to India was an impossibility during the last week of July.

-- Patrick Jonas, reporting in The Week. (reproduced in Genocide in Sri Lanka, by M.S. Venkatachalam, 1987. p.45.)

The censor was highly capricious and slashed out news without any sense of reason. Photography had been banned and one photographer had his camera smashed.

Journalists were no longer issued curfew passes. They were given passes to go only from their hotels to the office of the censor.

-- William Claiborne, Delhi-based South Asia correspondent of Washington Post. (reproduced in Genocide in Sri Lanka, by M.S. Venkatachalam, 1987. p.45.)

Somehow he [William Claiborne, Delhi-based South Asia correspondent of the Washington Post] managed to get some information and reported that shops and restaurants of Sri Lanka nationals of Tamil origin were selectively burnt and Sinhalese shops and establishments had been left intact –even their name boards were not touched by the hooligans and looters!

-- from Genocide in Sri Lanka, by M.S. Venkatachalam, 1987. p.45.

Barely hours after I touched down in Colombo, I was kept under strict surveillance. My phone was tapped, my notes confiscated. Getting a curfew pass proved to be a Herculean task. The inspector in charge of issuing a pass refused to give me one, saying with genuine concern that if I stepped into the street during curfew it would be suicide….

-- Anita Pratap, in Sunday weekly magazine (India). (reproduced in Genocide in Sri Lanka, by M.S. Venkatachalam, 1987. p.47.)

The suppression of information critical of the government extends to foreign journalists and agencies. Jayewardene expelled journalist David Selbourne in June 1983, smearing him as a marxist troublemaker, and a month later a UPI journalist was expelled for exposing Jayewardene’s call for foreign arms. Amnesty International and the British Guardian, which have both published damning reports on the violence against the Tamils, have been discredited in the Sri Lankan parliament and press.

-- from “Human rights violations in Sri Lanka.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.120.

A speech by David Selbourne can be found below.

The killing of the 13 soldiers was reported immediately by the media and the names of the soldiers were published, but the killing of the civilians by the soldiers on the following day was not reported. Had the deaths of civilians in Jaffna on July 24th been reported events might have turned out very differently. Two weeks later the President in answer to a question asked at a press conference is reported to have said that he had heard that some 20 civilians in Jaffna had been killed by troops on a rampage, and indicated at the time that he had then only just been informed of the killings. Even then that information was not made public in Sri Lanka. It was, however, published in the British newspaper, The Guardian, and in other foreign newspapers, and several people whom we met had learned of it from those sources.

-- “The Communal Violence in Sri Lanka, July 1983.” Report by LAWASIA, February 1984. Reproduced in its entirety in Sri Lanka: Serendipity under Siege by Patricia Hyndman, 1988. p.10.

Can there be anything more demoralising? It is a terrible feeling. It was a feeling that thousands of Tamils underwent during that terrible week in July. The Tamils could not understand how the Sinhalese people, among whom they had lived reasonably peacefully all these years, could have nurtured such venom and hatred against them. The greatest loss is that the Tamils have lost confidence in the Sinhalese. They can no longer feel secure in the South.

-- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.67-68.

Food shortages and inflated prices are one result. The Tamil industrial base, built up over generations, is no more. Censored news broadcasts are mainly about the efforts of government agencies to fill the food gap. These two weeks of terror will cripple Sri Lanka materially for years, but the damage to the national psyche may be even longer-lasting. A separatist movement can sometimes be stamped out by determined repression. Two alienated communities cannot be welded back together by similar means.

-- from “Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to Its Future”. The Economist. 6 August 1983, pp. 25-26.

‘The Tamils have dominated the commanding heights of everything good in Sri Lanka’, explained the soft-spoken Cambridge-educated finance minister. Mr Ronnie de Mel is too sophisticated to use the term on the tip of many Sinhalese tongues these days — the need for a ‘final solution’ to the Tamil problem. But, even for him, the ‘only solution’ is to ‘restore the rights of the Singalese majority’.

Restoring Singalese rights is a code phrase for dislodging the Tamils from their disproportionate influence over large sectors of the Sri Lankan economy. This is what the Singalese mobs set out to do when they put their torches to thousands of carefully targeted Tamil factories and shops. Now the government is about to advance this process by expropriating all damaged properties. Many Tamils will assist them by leaving the country.

-- from “Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to Its Future”. The Economist. 6 August 1983, pp. 25-26.

The emotional and angry reactions were undoubtedly fuelled by the tales of horror related by Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils who fled the island state in the wake of the violence. M.L. Vasanthakumari, Carnatic musician who was in Colombo on a concert tour at the invitation of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), returned to Madras visibly shattered by the experience. ‘My escape from Colombo was providential,’ she said. ‘We were staying with an industrialist friend and on July 25, we received a call from the SLBC asking us to leave immediately. We had barely left the house when it was set on fire by a Sinhalese mob. After that we huddled terrified in a hotel room for four days before we were able to board a Madras flight. It was a horrible experience.’

A 28 year-old systems analyst, a Sri Lankan Tamil who wishes to remain unidentified, had an even ghastlier experience to relate: ‘That morning, we were having a meeting in the office when we heard the sounds of mob fury. We went out onto the balcony and what we witnessed was systematic looting and arson by a merciless mob. The leader had a voters’ list with him to identify Tamil houses. They would mark a Tamil house, forcibly enter, smash the furniture and window panes, drag the inmates out and kill them. Another passing mob would stop cars, extort patrol and set fire to what was left of the houses. I rushed home and told my parents we must leave. Hardly had I said that when we heard the next house being ransacked. We grabbed our passports and a change of clothes and rushed out. A Sinhalese swung at me with a spear. Luckily, a Sinhalese shopkeeper nearby stopped him by telling him we spoke Sinhalese and had done a lot of social work locally. It was like being born again when we got out of the country.’

-- from “Tamil Nadu: Backlash” by S.H. Venkatramani. India Today. 31 August 1983, p.18.

Colombo’s refugees were only the tip of the iceberg. Although government spokesman Douglas Liyanage cheerfully told newsmen every day that the refugees were all ‘going back’ to a normal life, he was being disingenuous. Thousands of Indian Tamil estate workers who had hidden for weeks in the island’s central highlands after their homes were destroyed were steadily fleeing by bus — and even on foot — to hastily set up refugee camps in Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Jaffna in the north. The majority of these workers had been affected by earlier violence in 1977 and 1981 and had fled north then too, returning to the estates after the violence abated. Said M.E. Pius, the parish priest of Kilinochchi Roman Catholic church: ‘We have already set up five camps in our town since August 13 and housed more than a thousand refugees. This is only the beginning. In 1977 there were more than 10,000 of them.’ The refugees are living in tents in open spaces in the small Tamil town, and Father Pius says there has been absolutely no food aid from the Government — and even the maximum permissible food allowance per refugee per day is only Sri Lankan Rs. 7.

And so the tragedy unfolds. Every few years there is a venting of the Sinhala spleen, and a mass movement of terrorized Tamils to the north and east of the island, an unending cycle of pain and disillusionment. ‘This time we will not go back,’ says Santhanam, who worked up the courage to travel with 15 others by bus from Matale in the island’s centre on August 24. ‘They set fire to our houses in the night,’ sobs his wife Unnamulai, ‘and the owners of our tea and cocoa estate could not help us. We hid for two weeks in the jungle. We will never go back.’

-- from “The Aftermath” by Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 15 September 1983, pp. 66-76.

The government sat silent during days of terror. It sat silent when one of the most horrendous crimes of the country’s history was being perpetrated in Colombo’s high security Welikade prison. On 25 July, while the city lay under a total curfew and helicopters circled the prison roof, between 300 and 400 armed prisoners massacred thirty-seven political prisoners: all Tamils held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act who had been transferred to Colombo for ‘security’ reasons. Among the dead were Kuttimani and Jegan, both symbols of Tamil resistance. Two days later, without government silence being broken, the same macabre nightmare was re-enacted, and eighteen political prisoners were butchered in the prison, including the Gandhiyam Society’s Dr Rajasunderam. A senior minister later said that the Sinhalese were only ‘pacified’ after the massacre at Welikade.

-- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.104

There is of course one recent event that was scarcely calculated to instill such confidence. The last outbreak of communal violence began on 24 July 1983. For day after day, Tamils (of both the "Sri Lankan" and "Indian" varieties) were beaten, hacked or burned to death in the streets, on buses, and on trains, not only in Colombo but in many other parts of the Island - sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their houses and shops were burned and looted. Yet the security forces seemed either unwilling or unable to stop it - indeed, in Jaffna and Trincomalee, some members of the armed forces themselves joined in the fray, claiming an admitted 51 lives. Seen from the Tamil point of view, either the Government had lost control of the situation, or it was deliberately standing by while they were being taught a lesson. The first massacre in Welikada jail took place on 25 July, and claimed another 35 lives. The second - allegedly foreseen by the prison staff - came two days later, and claimed another 18. Not until the very end of that second episode was a special army unit sent in, to save the lives of the few remaining Tamil political prisoners.

-- Paul Sieghart. "Sri Lanka: A Mounting Tragedy of Errors". Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka in January 1984 on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and its British Section, JUSTICE. International Commission of Jurists, March 1984.

JULY 1983 WITNESS TESTIMONIALS

Sri Lanka's Week of Shame: an eyewitness account

N.Sanmugathasan
Leader, Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist), writing anonymously in Race &
Class, A Journal for Black & Third World Liberation
Volume XXVI Summer 1984 Number 1: Sri Lanka: Racism and the Authoritarian state

For the second time in my life (the first was during the 1958 communal riots), I had to undergo the indignities associated with being a Tamil in Sri Lanka. This time, it was under the Dharmista (Righteousness) government of Junius Richard Jayewardene.

Although communal violence has been frequent in Sri Lanka, it had previously always been contained. But not so, this time. It was a horrifying nightmare – looting, burning, murder on an unimaginable scale. Colombo resembles a bombed city in places – charred and blackened, roofless gaping buildings where prosperous houses, shops and factories once stood. What is dreadful to realise is that the whole operation was planned and carried out with virtually military precision. Tamil and Indian houses, shops and factories had quite clearly been marked out earlier. And although everything took place so quickly and over such a large area, giving the idea of spontaneity, everywhere the pattern was the same. As the BBC is reported to have said: 'The idea seems to have been to destroy the economic base of the Tamils.' It was an attempt at genocide.

Someone seemed to have planned the whole thing and waited only for an opportunity. And the opportunity came on the night of 23 July, at about 11.30 pm, when the so-called terrorists of the North, carrying on an armed struggle for a separate state of Eelam for the Tamils, ambushed and killed thirteen soldiers who were all Sinhalese (the Sri Lankan army is almost entirely Sinhalese). This sparked the fuse.

The army had shot and killed two 'terrorists' in the North a week earlier. The Tigers, as the Tamil militant youth call themselves, had been planning a retaliation. They had lured the army out several times on false information. Then, on 23 July 'information' about the whereabouts of some 'terrorists' was fed to the army. Ignoring an order not to go on night patrol, armed soldiers went out in two vehicles. They were easily ambushed. A detonator, which had recently been stolen from the Kankesanturai cement factory, was used to blow up the vehicles. When the soldiers got out, they were shot down from all sides. Thirteen died on the spot, two were wounded.

Sunday

Colombo received the news on Sunday, the 24th. By evening, crowds had gathered at Colombo's main cemetery where, apparently, the government had made an attempt to bury the bodies. Nobody knows why the government decided on this step, instead of returning the bodies to the areas from which the soldiers came. It seems to have had some confused idea of reaping political capital by rousing hatred among the Sinhalese against the 'terrorists'. In any event, a crowd of thousands surrounded the President's house at Ward Place (not his official residence) and demanded the bodies. The crowd was tear-gassed. But the government retreated. That night, a section of this crowd started the communal violence by setting fire to Tamil houses at the Borella end of Rosmead Place (near the cemetery).

By seven in the evening, I received the news of the attack on the army. All Tamils started phoning each other – expecting the worst, but hoping for the best: At about 1 o'clock, on the morning of Monday, the 25th, I was woken by a telephone call from a Sinhalese friend telling me that Tamil houses in Rosmead Place were burning. It was the start of a nightmare that was to last for days.

Monday

The morning newspapers, despite press censorship, published in headlines a statement from the Defence Minister announcing not merely the killing of the thirteen soldiers but also that their funeral, with full state honours, would be held that morning. This was nothing but sheer provocation. Thousands gathered near the cemetery and began looting and burning in every direction. Within hours, Colombo was caught up in the worst holocaust it had ever experienced. Tamil shops and houses were singled out and looted and burnt, while many Tamils were murdered – 500 in the first two days it was estimated. More than 500 cars and lorries were burnt and their wreckage left on the roads. Liquor shops owned by Tamils and Indians were looted and the mobs got drunk. The Indian-owned chain of liquor shops – Victoria Stores –were all looted.

There is no doubt that someone had identified the Tamil houses, shops and factories earlier. Seventeen industrial complexes belonging to some of the leading Tamil and Indian industrialists were razed to the ground, including those of the multi-millionaire and firm supporter of the ruling party, A.Y. Gnanam (the only capitalist in Sri Lanka to whom the World Bank offered a loan), and the influential Maharaja Organisation. The Indian-owned textile mills of Hidramani Ltd, which used a labour force of 4,000 in the suburbs of Colombo, were gutted. So was K.G. Industries Ltd, Hentleys Garments, one of the biggest garment exporters, and several other large textile and garment manufacturing establishments geared for export. The Indian Overseas Bank and the Bank of Oman were set on fire. Several cinemas owned by Tamils were destroyed. The list is endless. The suburb of Wellawatte, where the largest concentration of Tamils had lived, resembled a bombed town. It will have to be re-built. Probably the worst affected area was the Pettah, the commercial centre of Colombo, where Tamil and Indian traders played a dominant role. Hardly a single Tamil or Indian establishment was left standing.

A most distressing aspect of the vandalism was the burning and the destruction of the houses and dispensaries of eminent Tamil doctors – some with over a quarter of a century of service in Sinhala areas. Tamils form a good proportion of Sri Lanka's medical profession. More than one doctor is rumoured to have been killed in Colombo and in other cities.