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BOOK:
SINHALAYAGE ADISI HATURA ("THE UNSEEN ENEMY OF THE SINHALESE") The Indian trade unions always expect that the state will grant their members citizenship rights on humanitarian grounds. In fact, the local population, the Sinhala peasants who are living in the up-country areas, deserve to enjoy these human rights more than do the Indians, who speak a strange language, observe strange religious and cultural practices and who were deposited in the central part of the country by the British without so much as a ’by your leave’. Not for any reason should they be allowed to take even one step that will permit them to trample on the Sinhala Buddhist culture of the up-country Sinhalese and strengthen their power in the up-country areas ... -- From Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 1 (“The Indo-Ceylon (Implementations) Pact”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.129-130.) By granting citizenship to 300,000 Indians, with all political rights, we add their number to that of those 134,187 who have already received citizenship under the Indo-Pakistan Citizenship Act. With this expansion of figures, the up-country Sinhalese who has been waging a life-and-death struggle for many years will be completely subjugated. Thus, not only will 450,000 Indians gain special rights to employment in the plantations, but they will also be entitled to purchase land, be given land under Land Settlement Schemes and obtain employment in the state and local government sectors. They will even take power in Village Councils and other local government bodies. Finally, after balancing off the power between the Sinhalese parties, they will become the determinants of our national politics. Thereby, the ‘honour’ of converting the up-country areas, which have for over 2,500 years been a Sinhalese kingdom, to an Indian state - or rather the ‘honour’ of making Sri Lanka a part of India will belong to the United National Party ... -- From Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 1 (“The Indo-Ceylon (Implementations) Pact”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.130.) ... If we genuinely come forward to keep the up-country Sinhalese from becoming a minority and to protect their rights against the Indian voters, we must know that whether Indians’ names are entered on electoral lists in an illegal manner by certain corrupt officials, or whether some bankrupt politician seeks the help of the Indian voters to keep a government that is losing its stability, in power, the results will be the same. Either way, the local Sinhalese will be totally submerged by the large number of Indians who have been registered on the voters’ lists and be reduced to the status of a minority community ... -- from Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 4 (“The four demands of the Federal Party”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.130-1.) …the only solution to the problem which is now being faced by the Sinhalese people is that of uniting under the banner of Sinhala Buddhist culture and supporting whichever of the two parties (the UNP or the SLFP) which will openly and sincerely oppose the anti-Sinhala demands of the Federalists and the Indians ... -- from Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 4 (“The four demands of the Federal Party”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.131.) As Sinhalese who wish for peace and development, whether we be Buddhists or of any other religion, let us pray that no massacre of the type that took place in Malaysia on 13 May 1969 in a racial riot will ever take place here. Any person who reads this book with care will realise that there is a systematic growth of Tamil forces in this country, in opposition to the Sinhala Buddhist culture and the political and economic background of Sri Lanka. As matters now stand, it would be useless to merely say ‘Let there be peace’. If there is to be peace, all of us Sinhalese should set out on a firm plan of action to ensure the growth and development of future generations of Sinhalese in security and to ensure the defence of our rights and aspirations against foreign powers. -- from Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 10 (“The future of the Sinhalese”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.133.) Oh you Sinhalese, who are full of patriotism and nationalism, we pray that, just as the disaster you are preparing to leave for the future generations of Sinhalese, by permitting the governments that you have set up in your name to betray Sinhalese rights, one by one, thereby strengthening Tamil power, is very clearly visible to us, it will become as visible to you also. We pray that your political blindness will vanish, and that you may see the truth! Let us unite as Sinhalese to repress the threats of the Tamils! -- from Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (‘The Unseen enemy of the Sinhalese’), by Cyril Mathew, 1970. Chapter 10 (“The future of the Sinhalese”) (reproduced in “The Mathew Doctrine.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.133-4.)
1977 ANTI-TAMIL RIOTS -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.98.
The Public Library in fact contained irreplaceable literary and historical documents, and this book burning by Sinhalese police has come to signify for many a living Tamil the apogean barbarity of Sinhalese vindictiveness that seeks physical as well as cultural obliteration. -- on the Jaffna Public Library burning in 1981. from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.19. And then, on 31 May [1981], an unidentified gunman fired some shots at an [District Development Council] election meeting, and the tense atmosphere exploded into state-sponsored mayhem. With several highranking Sinhalese security officers and two cabinet ministers, Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake (both self-confessed Sinhala supremacists), present in the town, uniformed security men and plainclothes thugs carried out some well-organised acts of destruction. They burned to the ground certain chosen targets - including the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts, a Hindu Temple, the office and machinery of the independent Tamil daily newspaper Eelanadu, the house of the MP of Jaffna, the headquarters of the TULF, and more than 100 shops and markets. Four people were killed outright. No mention of this appeared in the national newspapers, not even the burning of the Library, the symbol of the Tamils’ cultural identity. -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.100. The government delayed bringing in emergency rule until 2 June [1981], by which time key targets had been destroyed. On 4 June, emergency rule was extended throughout the country, and lifted five days later. Meanwhile, the government had no intention of postponing elections, despite the fact that the signs were hardly auspicious. It was determined to win at least one seat in Tamil territory. On the morning of polling day, TULF leaders were arrested: they were later released, with no explanation given. After the elections, several of the ballot boxes were tampered with, and some were never produced for counting. But, in spite of this, TULF won all the seats in Tamil areas. After the elections were over, there was no respite for the Tamil people. While Sinhalese MPs fulminated against opposition colleagues, and discussed in parliament how to best kill them, Tamil peasants were actually being murdered by organised gangs in the border areas of Batticaloa and Amparai. During July and August, Tamils in the East and South, including the hill country plantation workers, were terrorised and made homeless. Women were raped, and at least twenty-five people perished. The attacks, many by well-organised goon squads, were widely believed to be directed by members of the ruling UNP, among them close friends of the President. -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.100-1 Throughout the rest of 1981, under the cover of a country-wide state of emergency, the army indulged in acts of violence in Jaffna District - assaulting schoolchildren, hitting out at people on the streets, burning houses and a bookshop. In November, under the pretext of ’hunting for terrorists’, soldiers entered an agricultural farm in Vavuniya where eleven families of plantation workers, victims of earlier hill country violence, had been settled by the Gandhiyam Society. This organisation, formed in 1976 for community and social service, had carried out most of its work among destitute Tamil refugees. Now Gandhiyam volunteer workers were assaulted by the military, and hung by their feet. A few days later, forty soldiers shot at close range a youth described in the newspapers as a ‘most wanted terrorist’ who was at the time on bail from police custody. By the beginning of 1982, it was clear that the army intended to stay in Jaffna. To quote an eye-witness writing in the January 1982 Tamil Times: ‘the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, and specially the Jaffna Peninsula, presents an appearance of a recently occupied territory, army personnel and vehicle movements being evident everywhere during day and night. Almost the entirety of the armed forces of the state has been deployed, with all the modern military hardware at its disposal’. -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.101 In March, the security forces attacked the Gandhiyam settlement at Pannakulam in Trincomalee, and on 6 April they arrested and tortured the Gandhiyam secretary, Dr S. Rajasunderam, and president, S.A. David, accusing them of harbouring ‘terrorists’. Shortly after, two young men and two young women who were distributing leaflets at Vavuniya calling for the release of Dr Rajasunderam were arrested and possibly tortured. Gandhiyam offices in the North were also shut down. Since this was the sole charitable organisation working for the rehabilitation of plantation Tamil refugees, the social implications were grave. -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.101
JULY
1983 AND IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH My only evidence of government involvement [in the July 1983 anti-Tamil violence] is a letter I received from a U.S. citizen, unknown to me, who had worked in Sri Lanka in the late 1950s. This was George Immerwahr, a United Nations civil servant, who wrote the following to me on 13 February 1985:
A negotiator of the Government of India who was dealing at the time with the situation in Ceylon told me that after his meetings with Ceylonese government leaders, he obtained the impression that they themselves were party to the pogroms against the Tamils. -- from The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.173 On 24 July 1983, the day after the worst anti-Tamil holocaust, I phone the President and after discussing one or two urgent matters, asked him why he had let down the T.U.L.F. when their leaders had gone out of their way to honour the undertakings they had provided – something which I, as the intermediary, was certain they had done. The President’s answer was unconvincing. -- from The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.212. President J. R. Jayewardene’s complicity to the Riots, official statements: President Jayewardene’s actions against the Tamils after July 1983 defy straightforward explanation. One of his frequent excuses to me was that he did not want to erode his political base. This political base, which he shared with Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was ‘the land, the race and the faith’. During 1978-83, my years as an intermediary, the President successfully kept the Buddhist monks and Buddhist pressure organisations at bay. But the price of being able to resist them was that he had to reduce the substance of devolution that he promised to me and the T.U.L.F. -- from The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.213-4 The worst India can do is to invade us. If they invade us, that is the end of the Tamils in this country. -- President Jayewardene, in an interview with India Today in 1984. (reproduced in The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.222) The time has come for the whole Sinhala race which has existed for 2,500 years, jealously safeguarding their language and religion, to fight without giving any quarter. … I will lead the campaign. … -- J.R. Jayewardene, then a U.N.P. leader, June 1957. (reproduced in The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.222) I was reluctant to write this book, and for a long time after 1983 I could not resolve the matter in my conscience. A major factor was that I was close to President J.R. Jayewardene in the critical phase from 1978 to 1983. But as I kept reading with horror the operations by security forces of the island state, I realised I could no longer be a silent witness. -- A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, in the preface of The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, 1988. Jayewardene, when he broke his silence on 28 July, spoke to much the same effect. He expressed no sorrow for what had befallen the country; he had no words of sympathy for the victims. Instead, the anti-Tamil violence was deemed a just retribution for the death of the thirteen Sinhalese soldiers. The President did not call on the security forces to restore law and order, and bring the looters and arsonists under control. His message was quite a different one: he warned the Tamil people that, under a new law, anyone who refused to sign a declaration disavowing separatism could suffer loss of property, travel documents and be barred from public examinations. The tone of the speech fueled the fury of the mobs, and violence flared up with a new vehemence on 29 July. -- “The state against Tamils.” Nancy Murray. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.104-5 The Sri Lankan government failed to give adequate protection or even assurance of protection to Tamils while they were being attacked. The President himself maintained an inexplicable silence during the first four days of violence. When he addressed the nation, he had no word of sympathy for the victims. His attitude to the Tamil people may have been indicated in what he stated to Ian Ward in an interview published in the London Daily Telegraph on 11 July 1983: I have tried to be effective for some time but cannot. I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now ... Now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or of their opinion about us. -- from “Human rights violations in Sri Lanka.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.126. … I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now… Now we cannot think of them. Not about their lives or of their opinion about us… The more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… really, if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy… -- from an interview with J.R. Jeyawardene by Ian Ward. London Daily Telegraph, 11 July 1983. … In an even more inflammatory move, it was decided to have a mass public funeral for the soldiers in Kanatte, the main cemetery in Colombo, on Sunday 24 July. Thousands of people arrived at the cemetery but the bodies failed to appear. Having been kept waiting for several hours, the restive crowd was told that the funeral had been cancelled. Large sections of the crowd dispersed towards busy Borella town near the cemetery. Within minutes, Tamil establishments in Borella went up in flames. There is some evidence that those responsible for the attacks on Tamils in Borella were not those who were at the cemetery. This raises some worrying possibilities which President Jeyawardene had no intention of investigating: he probably knew the answer. Jayawardene’s home is only a stone’s throw away, and there is not the slightest possibility that he could not have seen Borella on fire. However, there were no orders from him to the police or the armed forces to stop the arson and murder, nor was a State of Emergency declared. With the number of police and armed forces on the streets, there is no question that they could have controlled the situation if they had wanted to, or were ordered to. -- “Sri Lanka's Week of Shame: The July 1983 massacre of Tamils – Long-term consequences.” Brian Senewiratne. http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/07-28_Consequences.php?uid=1866 Published 28 July 2006. And not until the fifth day, on 28 July, did President Jayewardene finally appear on national television. … In the course of that address, the President did not see fit to utter one single word of sympathy for the victims of the violence and destruction which he lamented. If his concern was to re-establish communal harmony in the Island whose national unity he was so anxious to preserve by law, that was a misjudgment of monumental proportions. I have yet to meet a single Tamil at any level in Sri Lanka or out of it who does not remind me of this glaring omission at the first opportunity. Nor are they reassured by the programmes for relief and rehabilitation of the victims which the Government has in fact since installed: at the time of my visit, six months later, around 10,000 homeless Tamils were still in refugee camps. -- 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. In fact, only after the violence had abated by August 8 did Jayewardene admit to western correspondents that the news of army atrocities in Jaffna two weeks before the ambush and killing of 13 soldiers on July 23 had been ‘deliberately’ withheld from him. ‘Discipline is a problem in the army.’ admitted Jayewardene blandly. At one stroke, instead of firmly taking things in hand, Jayewardene had chosen the path of appeasing Sinhala sentiment. ‘I cannot see, and my government cannot see,’ he said, ‘any other way by which we can appease the natural desire and request of the Sinhala people.’ -- from “The Tamil Tragedy” by Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 31 August 1983, pp.14-23. Minister Cyril Mathew’s role in leading the Riots: Sri Lanka is a Sinhala history and nothing else. -- Cyril Mathew, Minister of Industries and Scientific Affairs, at the 29th Annual Conference of the United National Party, December 1983. (reproduced in The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.222) If the Sinhala are the majority race, why can’t they be the majority? -- Cyril Mathew, Minister of Industries and Scientific Affairs, in Parliament, 4 August 1983. (reproduced in Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986.) Much of the foreign press had apparently no difficulty in identifying Mathew as the main instigator of the violence. The London Economist had this to say: The Tamil-baiter the Tamils fear most is an influential cabinet minister, Mr Cyril Mathew. He has been accused of having engineered the Sinhalese counter-terror through his followers in the party’s trade union. He denies this vigorously, but goes on to prosecute his anti-Tamil case with files of underlined clippings and his own speeches, glossily bound under such titles as ‘Diabolical Conspiracy’. His arguments about the folly of placating the Tamils and the need to crush terrorism before talking are echoed by many of his fellow ministers. (6 August 1983) It is worth noting that most of the petrol that was used to burn shops, homes and vehicles was kept ready in white cans at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, which comes under the jurisdiction of Industries Minister, Cyril Mathew. -- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.73-74. According to India Today’s sources, Mathew, who also heads the UNP’s own powerful labour union, Jathika Sevaka Sanghamaya, ‘was directly responsible for pin-pointing Tamil-owned shops and factories to be destroyed.’ (31 August 1983). … He has, in parliament, on the debate to amend the constitution so as to ban parties which advocate separatism (i.e., the TULF), defended the violence. ’The Sinhalese were frustrated for years, they were discriminated [against]. If the Sinhala is the majority race, why can’t they be the majority?’ -- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.74. Minister Gamini Dissayanake’s role in justifying the anti-Tamil sentiment: They [Tamils] are bringing an army from India. It will take 14 hours to come from India. In 14 minutes, the blood of every Tamil in the country can be sacrificed to the land by us. Who attacked you [Tamils]? Sinhalese. Who protected you? Sinhalese. It is we who can attack you and protect you. -- Gamini Dissanayake, Minister of Land and Land Development, 5 September 1983. (reproduced in The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, by A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988. p.222) Even today, Thondaman has spoken in parliament supporting Mr. Amirthalingam and the struggle of the people in the North for their rights. Our Buddhist priests and Sinhala youths have been enraged by this. We have calmed them with great difficulty. Who attacked you? Sinhalese. Who protected you? Sinhalese. It is we who can attack and protect you. They are bringing an army from India. It will take 14 hours to come from India. In 14 minutes, the blood of every Tamil in the country can be sacrificed to the land, by us. It is not written on anyone’s forehead that he is an Indian Tamil or a Jaffna Tamil, a Batticaloa Tamil or up-country Tamil, Hindu Tamil or Christian Tamil. All are Tamils. We have decided to colonise four districts including Mannar with Sinhalese people by destroying forests. A majority of Sinhalese will be settled there. If you like you also can migrate there. -- Gamini Dissanayake, Minister of Land and Land Development, president of UNP-controlled Lanka Jathika Estate Workers’ Union, addressing the executive committee of his Lanka Jathika Estate Workers’ Union at ’Sri Kotha’, Colombo, 5 September 1983. (reproduced in “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.74.) Genocidal dimension of the violence: The conventional and agreed-upon story is that the most proximate cause or trigger was the ambush of an army truck and the killing and mutilation of thirteen soldiers at Tinneveli, a place in the Jaffna district in the heart of the Sri Lankan Tamil territory, which had been under army occupation for some time. This ambush was made by a group of Sri Lankan Tamil youth who call themselves the “Liberation Tigers” of Tamil Eelam, and whom the government refers to as terrorists. The army of occupation, some 1,200 troops at the time, was composed almost totally of Sinhalese. Indeed, the armed forces (but not the police) in Sri Lanka today are virtually filled by the majority Sinhalese, and the Tamil minority are virtually excluded from serving in them. In 1983, Tamils at best formed only 5% or less of a standing army of around 11,000 regulars and about 2,000-4,000 volunteers. Even more disconcerting is that there has been virtually no recruitment of Tamils into the armed forces, and very little into the police force, for nearly thirty years. Except for the age group close to retirement, Tamils are today virtually unrepresented in the armed forces and heavily underrepresented in the police force if we take their population size as a criterion, a criterion that most Sinhalese automatically invoke in their favor. -- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.15. During the debate on the sixth amendment to the constitution on 4 August 1983 (Hansard, Volume 24, no. 13), Mr Cyril Mathew made no secret about his views on the cause of the violence. He stated that he was not speaking as a cabinet minister but as a representative of the Sinhala people. Referring to the destruction of the Pettah shopping area of Colombo, which was a virtual Tamil monopoly, and to government plans to rebuild it, he said, ‘The Sinhala people want to know what you are going to do? They [Tamils] are like maharajas there. A Sinhala trader cannot even get a finger in. It is this injustice which has been festering like a wound for twenty five years. Only a spark was needed. That spark fell on the 24th of July.’ -- from “Human rights violations in Sri Lanka.” Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.127. Lest anyone not take seriously the idea of conquering Tamil lands for the Sinhalese, let it be pointed out that Mathew had a modus operandi for this. He has located what he alleges were former Buddhist places of worship in the North and East which he claims have now been converted into Hindu shrines and their names changed. He wants to reclaim these places and bring them back to their original position as Buddhist shrines and monasteries. The plan is exceedingly simple. It is to use the Building Materials Corporation and other Corporations under his Ministry (Industries) to repair or build anew these so-called Buddhist shrines, install a Buddhist priest and then plant a colony of 100 or 200 Sinhalese as dayakas to support the priest and the monastery. This programme of work has apparently advanced a long way. Even after the disturbances, Minister Cyril Mathew canvassed these views openly at a recent meeting held at Galle at the opening of the Duttugemunu Vihara. This speech was reported in the Tamil daily, Virakesari on the 29th September, 1983. In the course of his speech, Mathew called upon Sinhalese Buddhists to volunteer to go and live near these allegedly former viharas in the North and Eastern provinces. He estimated the number of such viharas at 276. -- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.73 But what I find most extraordinary is that, to this day, there has been no attempt to find out the truth through an official, public and impartial enquiry, when the situation in the country cries out for nothing less. -- 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. But for days the soldiers and policemen were not overwhelmed: they were unengaged or, in some cases, apparently abetting the attackers. Numerous eye-witnesses attest that soldiers and policemen stood by while Colombo burned. Were they following their own communal instincts, or signals from above? -- from “Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to Its Future”. The Economist. 6 August 1983, pp. 25-26. One-fourth of Colombo’s population is Tamil, and by the first week of August, three-fifths of the Tamils, 90,000 in all, had crowded in terrified disarray into 15 refugee camps, euphemistically called ‘care and welfare centres’, fleeing from the marauding Sinhalas. Almost every refugee had escaped with just the clothes on his or her back, and for days on end the women sat surrounded by their squealing infants, eyes glazed unable to comprehend the catastrophe that had sliced their lives in half. -- from “The Tamil Tragedy”. India Today. 31 August 1983, pp. 14-22. Organisation and pre-planning: More than any other previous ethnic riot, the 1983 eruption showed organized mob violence at work. Gangs armed with weapons such as metal rods and knives and carrying gasoline (frequently confiscated from passing motor vehicles) and, most intriguing of all, because it indicates prior intent and planning, carrying voter lists and addresses of Tamil owners and occupants of houses, shops, and other property, descended in waves to drive out Tamils, loot and burn their property, and sometimes kill them in bestial fashion. These gangs frequently had access to transportation – they traveled in buses or were dropped off at successive locations by the Colombo coastline trains. -- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.21. As The Times (London) of 8 August 1983 put it: “This time [unlike in earlier riots] the Government detected plain signs of deliberate organization. The rioters, seeking out Tamil homes and burning them, had a particularly detailed knowledge of who lived where and who owned what.” India Today (New Delhi) of August 31 confirmed this report: “The mobs were armed with voters’ lists, and detailed addresses of every Tamil-owned shop, house, or factory, and their attacks were very precise.” Most of Wellawatte, the ward in Colombo where Tamils were concentrated, was burned; so were large portions, and entire lanes, in the wards of Dehiwala and Bambalapitiya. -- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.21. A third disconcerting feature of the 1983 riots was the complete breakdown of law and order, a breakdown that was caused as much by the active participation or passive encouragement of the ultimate guardians of law and order—the police and the army—as by inflamed criminal excesses of the civilian marauders. There were several instances of the authorities’ active or passive condoning of the destruction of life and property. -- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.24. The New York Times (Sunday, 7 August 1983) reported that “Sri Lankan Army troops pulled 20 civilians off a bus and executed them two weeks ago in retaliation for a Tamil guerilla attack that killed 13 soldiers, a government spokesman confirmed today.” This was up north in Jaffna. Elsewhere,
in Trincomalee, the beautiful, coveted harbor on the east coast,
where Tamils and Sinhalese (the majority of the latter being considered
by the Tamils as recent intruders) were poised in equal numbers,
sailors from the Sri Lankan navy ran amok, themselves setting
a bad example for the civilians to follow. The sailors, later
assisted and accompanied by civilians, ran riot, killing and looting
and setting houses and shops ablaze. Morawewa, a district of Tamil
residential concentration, was reduced to ashes. Army personnel actively encouraged arson and looting of business establishments and homes in Colombo and absolutely no action was taken to apprehend or prevent the criminal elements involved in these activities. In many instances army personnel participated in the looting of shops. -- The Times (of London), 5 August 1983. (reproduced in Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986.) President Jayawardene said in a television interview yesterday that troops and police had sometimes encouraged the anti-Tamil violence. The President told a BBC interviewer: “I think there was a big anti-Tamil feeling among the forces, and they felt that shooting the Sinhalese who were rioting would have been anti-Sinhalese; and actually in some cases we saw them encouraging them.” -- The Times (of London), 9 August 1983. Also in The Guardian (of London), 9 August, 1983. (reproduced in Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986.) One of the houses burnt in the Sinhalese violence belonged to the editor of “Virakesari” which is owned by Mr. Wenceslaus, father-in-law of Mr. Vijay Amirtharaj, Indian Tennis Star. But the ‘Virakesari’ building was left intact. This was not by sheer oversight—but a deliberate omission! Sri Lanka President Mr. Jayawardene was born in this building and the Sinhalese rioters were not prepared to commit the sacrilegious act of pulling it down! Does this
not clearly indicate to the world as to who masterminded the riots?
In spite of this Mr. Jayawardene is making futile attempts to
shift the burden and making a number of unconcerned persons scape-goated! But the Prime Minister’s words convey nothing like the scale of the violence which occurred on the 25th , the 26th, and over the rest of that week. Tamil shops, houses and business premises were systematically fired. In Colombo at least 500 cars—some with drivers and passengers inside—were burnt. Tamil-owned buses, running between Colombo and Jaffna were burnt. Tamil patients in hospitals were attacked and killed – some had their throats cut as they lay in their beds. Tamil doctors had their dispensaries and houses burnt and destroyed. In Welikade jail Tamil detainees were brutally and cold-bloodedly murdered, over two separate days. Thirty-five were killed on the 25th, another seventeen on the 27th in a ‘prison riot’, allegedly by Sinhalese prisons who somehow got out of their cells, somehow got weapons, and somehow could not be restrained by their (armed) prison guards. (In Jaffna jail, about the same time guards were able to shoot down and kill four Tamil prisoners allegedly attempting to escape.) Altogether, fifty-three Tamil prisoners died in Welikade, their bodies smashed and mutilated. -- “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). pp.65-66. Sri Lanka’s capital city for most of the last fortnight looked like it had been taken by a conquering army. Street after street lay empty to the gaze, although the dawn-to-dusk curfew had been lifted, and small, watchful groups of Sinhalese dotted the side-walks, providing flesh and blood counterpoints to the hundreds of burnt-out shops and factories and homes that lined the once bustling markets and roads. The arson was professional, charred shells fallen in on themselves, with blackened signboards announcing Tamil ownership hanging askew, here and there a liquor shop with hundreds of broken bottles littering the floor, or a jewellery mart with showcases battered in and the gold and the gems carefully removed before the torching. Fifty yards from the Indian High Commission, right next door to the police headquarters, stood a huge block, blackened and devastated. ‘The shops in this block had heavy grille doors,’ recalled an eye-witness, ‘so an army truck was used as a battering ram to break through them, and then the soldiers sprang in with Sinhala battle cries to claim the lion’s share of the loot.’ -- an article published in India Today. Reproduced in “Sri Lanka: the story of the holocaust.” N. Shanmugathasan. Race & Class, XXVI, 1 (1984). p.66. As a result of the decision to bury the soldiers in Colombo many people, relatives and friends and villagers from the homes of the soldiers, collected at the cemetery. Many people who would have attended the funerals had they been held in the separate birth-places of the soldiers, had come to Colombo to attend the ceremony there instead. There may have been as many as 300 persons from each area and, in addition of course, many other people from Colombo were at the cemetery as well. According to observers the crowd which collected (reported in one paper as consisting of 10,000 people) was restive. There was a delay in the arrival of the bodies, and, by the time of their arrival, feelings were running very high. -- “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.11. Senior members of the government, members of opposition parties, lawyers, members of citizens’ groups, people affected by the violence, and international aid workers interviewed were all consistent in stating that, from the beginning of the disturbances, many people in the mobs in the streets possessed election lists containing the names and addresses of all those who lived in particular streets. The lists indicated the houses in occupation by Tamils and also whether the owner of a house was Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim. The possessions and houses of Tamil people were then systematically attacked. If a Tamil family were living in a house rented from Sinhalese owners the house itself was not damaged but the furniture and property of the Tamils within it would be destroyed. In many streets all the Tamil-owned shops were destroyed but those owned by Muslims or Sinhalese were spared. The same thing happened with houses. … -- “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. … the killers, the arsonists and the looters did not rise from the ranks of the most disadvantaged. It was Colombo that was burning on 23 July 1983. The fires spread to other towns and distant bazaars later. The social complexion of the marauding mobs was markedly urban – not only such marginal metropolitan groups as shanty dwellers, but strong-arm brigades and ‘rapid-deployment forces’ which recently emerged under political patronage and semi-educated youths tantalised by a new cult of violence and captivated by newly acquired life-styles. -- “Paradise — and Hostage to the Past.” Mervyn de Silva. Far Eastern Economic Review, January 26, 1984, pp. 22-23. People identified as Tamils as a result of the questioning were told to get out of their cars, and their cars were set alight. If they were Sinhalese they were allowed to go, although often demands were made for petrol from the car, and the petrol was then used in the destruction of Tamil property. Early in the week the mobs were relatively orderly; later in the week many of the aggressors were reported to be drunk, having rifled liquor stores. This made the encounters even more terrifying for those stopped. -- "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.14. One thing is quite clear: they did not start spontaneously. On the morning of 24 July, many people apparently went about their ordinary business in Colombo, with no forebodings and no expectations of anything untoward. And then, suddenly, the streets were full of goondas, Tamil houses and shops were on fire, Tamil possessions were being destroyed, and Tamils were being killed. Nor was this merely the observation of a few individuals: it is vouched for by the government itself. In a speech made in the immediate aftermath, on 29 July, Dr. Anandatissa de Alwis, the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, said this:-
Clearly, this was not a spontaneous upsurge of communal hatred among the Sinhala people - nor was it, as has been suggested in some quarters, a popular response to the killing of 13 soldiers in an ambush by Tamil Tigers on the previous day, which was not even reported in the newspapers until after the riots began. It was a series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a concerted plan, conceived and organised well in advance. But who were the planners and organisers, responsible for what they began, and for all its foreseeable consequences in killings, maimings, and loss of property, necessarily followed by a major setback for Sri Lanka's economy? -- 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. Displacement of Tamils as refugees domestically and abroad: Apart from those killed – the government admitted to a death toll of 350, but the suspected numbers are larger, the Tamil estimates nearing 2,000—the largest immediate tragedy was the number of refugees who had abandoned their homes and their jobs and were crowded in the terrified disarray into some fifteen refugee camps in Colombo (called “care and welfare centers”). The estimates of the refugees in the Colombo camps alone ranged from 80,000 to 1000,000. In The Guardian (9 August 1983) David Beresford wrote: “The Sri Lanka Government told foreign diplomats last night that about 100,000 people needed homes, clothes, household goods, and food for between three and six months, following last month’s communal violence.” The government also estimated that some 18,000 households were affected. -- from Sri Lanka – Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, by S. J. Tambiah, 1986. p.22. It will be some time before the full toll of these weeks of fire and brimstone is known, partly because so many Tamils have fled their homes. The refugee camp population had reached 76,000 by the end of the first week, according to official figures released by diplomats. On July 29th the first boatload of displaced Tamils set off for the relative safety of Jaffna. Other boats, including three lent by India, will continue the sea-lift. -- from “Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to Its Future”. The Economist. 6 August 1983, pp. 25-26. Colombo’s refugee camps, which once housed 90,000, had dwindled in number last fortnight, and the 13,000 Tamils left behind had nowhere to go — descendants of estate workers brought over from India by the British, they had missed the repatriation bus, holding neither Indian nor Sri Lankan citizenship, were stateless and unwanted. Not for them the options available to the indigenous Jaffna Tamils, 40,000 of whom had fled north by ship, train or bus, or to the lucky ones who owned Indian passports and could expect refuge beyond the Palk Strait. -- from “The Aftermath” by Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 15 September 1983, pp. 66-76. Just before dawn on August 22 the vessel Bharat Seema slipped out of Colombo’s harbour, on an 11-hour journey to Tuticorin. The ship carried 340 so-called India-Sri Lankan passport holders, people who had been fortunate to have beaten the October 31, 1981, deadline for obtaining Indian citizenship. There were 540 such refugees in the St Thomas Prep School camp next to the American Embassy on Galle Road. ‘Most of these refugees are estate workers who have managed to get here from places near Colombo,’ says Nirupama Rao, first secretary in the Indian High Commission, who is in charge of repatriation. The refugees who didn’t make the ship lacked travel documents, or family cards issued by the Sri Lanka Government. All the estate workers had fled to Colombo because their lines ‚ quarters ‚ had been burnt down on the estates. One of those who failed to board the Bharat Seema is a frightened, dumpy man, grey stubble framing unkempt spectacles. Mahalingam Acharya, 64, came to Sri Lanka in 1948 from Madurai in Tamil Nadu. A goldsmith by training, his shop in Urugodawatte was burnt down by maddened Sinhala neighbours in 1958. Since then Acharya had been eking out an existence by reading horoscopes. He could not forsee his own fate. On July 25 his house was set upon by a howling gang of Sinhala youths and his wife was killed before his eyes. Acharya wanders around the St Thomas camp, waiting for his papers to be issued, wistfully watching the refugees who are preparing to leave for India, their passports being stamped by a harassed Sri Lankan immigration officer at a rickety school desk in the playground. Each family leaving for India has been promised a compensation of 1,000 Sri Lankan rupees (Rs 400). But that amount will be paid into an Indian bank at a later date. Manel Abeysekara, the bustling Foreign Office coordinator of the camp, claims that the food, supplied by the Ceylon Hotels Corporation, is not bad at all. ‘Nobody’s assessed the damage to these refugees’ property,’ she says, ‘and so we are not paying any compensation, except the 1,000 rupees.’ In every camp last fortnight the authorities were busy trying to get people to leave, either giving them dry rations of rice, flour and sugar and asking them to go home or to the friendly north, or cutting down on food rations in the hope that more would leave. Hundreds of refugees who trickled in late from around Colombo or from the estates around Nuwara Eliya and Hatton were turned away. M.S. Croose, 29, is the eldest of four brothers and three sisters, and all of them have somehow got into the St Thomas camp for Indian passport holders, although they are stateless. ‘I have been trying since 1976 for an Indian passport,’ says Croose, who trained as an electrician, ‘but I wasn’t lucky. I couldn’t take a job in the Middle East because I was stateless.’
-- from “The Aftermath” by Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 15 September 1983, pp. 66-76. 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 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. While all
this was happening, the police and the armed forces were more
conspicuous by their absence. They either looked the other way
or joined in the looting. The army was the worst offender. Several
onlookers have reported that army men traveling in lorries waved
merrily to the looters, who waved back. No action whatsoever was
taken to disperse the mobs. Not even tear-gas was used. The criminal
gangs gained in confidence. During the
day, as more and more reports came of increasing violence, I debated
whether to move to a safer place with my family. We were living
near the heart of the city. But I put off the decision, hoping
against hope that the situation would improve, although we had
been watching smoke spiraling from burnt houses half a mile away.
By this time, about three other Tamil refugees with two small
children had taken shelter in our house. Their houses had been
attacked. To make matters worse, the telephone failed. Not just
my telephone, but all adjacent telephones. We were effectively
cut off. By about five in the evening, smoke erupted from two
houses which were burning scarcely a hundred yards away. We could
not delay any more. Eight adults and three children all vaulted
over the high back wall of our house and took shelter at the Muslim
house behind ours. Huddled together in the back verandah –
lest we be spotted – we lived through a nightmare which
I would not care to have repeated. Tuesday As soon
as dawn broke, we returned to our home and, on our way, saw the
charred remains of the two burnt Tamil houses. Again, the debate
as to whether we should leave for safer places. By ten in the
morning, Sinhalese friends came by car and we decided to move.
Our family split up to go to two different houses. I went with
a nephew to a Sinhala friend's house in Ratmalana, a suburb where
several factories and houses had also been burnt. I had to keep
a low profile in my friend's house so that people would not see
that he was harbouring Tamils. While it
is true that the Tamils will never forget or forgive the chauvinistic
and, criminal elements from among the Sinhalese who wrought havoc
on the properties and the persons of the Tamils, it is equally
true that they salute those brave and good-hearted Sinhalese who
sheltered a large number of Tamils at great risk to themselves.
It was with one of them that I sheltered. We were
still under the curfew imposed the previous day. In fact, the
friends who took us away in their cars had to have curfew passes
from the police. But the fact that a curfew had been imposed was
no safeguard – the looters and communal gangs were now confident
that the police and the armed forces would not act against them.
By now, it was being openly whispered that the government, to
all intents and purposes, had lost control of the armed forces.
Only the navy, which alone had not suffered casualties from the
terrorists, was supposed to be reliable. In fact, when the Prime
Minister toured Colombo to see the damages for himself, he was
escorted by the Naval Commander. Wednesday As Wednesday
dawned, there were still sporadic incidents. The curfew was lifted
at dawn to enable people to buy necessary provisions. But food
shortages had hit the country – not for lack of stocks,
but because the distribution system had broken down. The sacking
of 3rd Cross Street and 4th Cross Street at Pettah, the business
centre of Colombo, meant that the wholesale trade in rice, which
was dominated by Indians, had been disturbed. Most of the grocery
shops and retail outlets in and around Colombo were in the hands
of the Indians or Tamils. Their destruction meant immediate shortages
of foodstuffs. Although basic essentials were available in small
quantities, many things, like cigarettes, became unobtainable.
Queues formed for rice and bread and sugar. By mid-day,
I heard the horrible news about the murder of thirty-five Tamil
detenues inside Welikade prison. It was a terrific shock that
jolted everyone – Tamil and Sinhalese. Looting and burning
by unidentifiable gangs, who then disappear, is one thing. But
the killing in cold blood of prisoners, who had been committed
to prison by courts of law and whose safety was the responsibility
of the prison authorities, is quite another. Very few believed
the story that these killings were the result of a prison riot.
How did the other prisoners get out of their cells? Where did
they get their weapons? And, most important, who put these Island
Reconvicted Criminals next to the detenues and in the same building?
And when? And even
if one overlooked the first killings, how to explain the killing
of a further seventeen Tamil detenues on the following day? What
were the prison authorities doing for twenty-four hours? Why didn't
they send the Tamil detenues to a safer place? This coldly calculated
murder of Tamil prisoners, held in custody inside a prison, will
be an eternal blot on the Sri Lankan government that nothing can
wipe out. An army officer who had visited the prison morgue told
me that the detenues must have been attacked with clubs and knives.
Kuttimani had been badly slashed. Among the second batch of murdered
Tamil detenues was Dr Rajasunderam, the respected leader of the
Gandhiyam movement, based in Vavuniya, which had done yeoman service
in resettling refugees of Indian origin from the plantations who
had fled an earlier communal conflict. My Sinhalese
friend with whom I was staying was visibly moved by this outrage
within the prison. He quoted the following stanza from W.H. Auden,
written on the occasion of the death of Yeats: Intellectual
disgrace Thursday Rumours
were flying fast about the possibility of an Indian invasion –
even that Indian troops had already landed in Jaffna. This was,
of course, a response to the three-hour debate on the Sri Lankan
situation in the Indian parliament and to the telephone conversation
that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had with President Jayewardene,
in the course of which she asked him to receive Indian Foreign
Minister Narasimha Rao, whom she was sending to Sri Lanka on a
fact-finding mission. Sporadic
incidents continued and the food shortage worsened. Another Sinhalese
friend brought me some rice and flour. It was reported that seven
suspects allegedly carrying small arms and bombs in a bid to destroy
Fort station, Colombo's main railway centre, were shot and killed. In the late
evening the President made a much delayed speech on TV –
everyone wondered why he had not addressed the nation earlier.
What a sorry performance! There was no condemnation of the communal
violence that had taken place; not even a mention of the killing
of the Tamils or of the murders inside the prison. His speech
was a justification of the violence by the Sinhala mobs and a
virtual invitation for more. He said that the actions of the Sinhalese
were a reaction to the Tamil demand for separation. He spoke not
as the President of Sri Lanka, but as a Sinhala president. In
the course of his speech, he announced that legislation would
be brought to ban all parties and movements advocating separation,
and that severe penalties, including loss of civic rights and
the right to practise their professions, would be imposed on members
of such parties. I went to
bed that night with the feeling that Tamils in Sri Lanka were
not mere step-children but abandoned children. All India Radio
announced that Indian Foreign Minister Narasimha Rao would be
coming to Sri Lanka the next day. Friday My daughter
and son-in-law had gone home the previous day and reported that
the area around our home was relatively quiet. But I could not
find transport to get back home the same day. Petrol, by now,
was scarce. However, after breakfast, a friend picked me up and
drove me home. And, of course, the sorry sight of burnt shops
and houses all along the way. Queues everywhere. My telephone
was working, but failed again within an hour or so of my returning.
Just before noon, we heard the rumour that there was renewed trouble
and that the streets were full of people – running and looting. What had
happened was this: at Gas Work's Street, in the Pettah, someone
had thrown a bomb from the top of a building at some soldiers.
The soldiers had fired back and killed two people – both
Sinhalese. A soldier had mistakenly shot himself. The rumour then
spread that the northern terrorists had landed in Colombo and
were attacking the army. Within minutes, the roads were choked
with people – some fleeing from the terrorists and others
preparing to fight them. For a few moments the roles were reversed,
and the Sinhalese were fleeing from the alleged Tamil Tigers.
In the rush, several Tamils were killed. One of them was cremated
where he fell on the road. Apparently, according to all subsequent
reports, the violence that took place in the streets on Friday
was pretty serious. The curfew was imposed at 2pm, and continued
during the entire weekend. The state
radio had openly to discount the rumour before calm was restored.
Earlier, other rumours had been used to create tension and chaos:
that Palaly airport in Jaffna had been captured by the Tigers;
that the military hospital in Jaffna had been attacked; that the
Buddhist High Priest of the Nagadipa (an island off Jaffna) Vihara
had been killed (it was found that he was alive and well in his
village temple in the South where he had gone on personal business);
that foreign troops (meaning Indian) had landed in the North;
and that the army had suffered severe casualties in the North
and (according to some reports) had withdrawn to Vavuniya. All
these rumours were officially discounted over the radio by a government
spokesman. For the
first time, the army shot and killed some looters – fifteen
according to radio reports. If such stern action had been taken
by the government on the very first day the trouble started, it
could have been nipped in the bud. The Indian
Foreign Minister arrived by special plane and had talks with the
President, the Prime Minister and a few cabinet ministers. He
also flew by helicopter to Kandy, the hill capital, and met with
officials of the Indian High Commission. He is reported to have
offered any type of help that Sri Lanka needed, particularly foodstuffs
and medical supplies. It seems also to have been agreed that India
would send a ship to transport people of Indian origin from the
refugee camps to Jaffna in the North. This was reported by All
India Radio. By now,
nearly ten refugee camps had been set up in Colombo to house those
Tamils who had been rendered homeless. The figures rose from 20,000
to 50,000 within days, and then reached 79,000. Conditions in
the camps were horrible, almost primitive. The Ratmalana airport
hangar, which was got ready to house 800 refugees, accommodated
8,000. According to an inmate, there was hardly standing space.
There were over 2,000 infants and 500 elderly people, with only
one doctor to serve them. Water was scarce and food was inadequate.
Similar camps had also been set up in Kandy, Matale, Badulla,
etc., where serious incidents had also taken place. Several service
organisations were volunteering to look after the refugees. In the evening,
the Prime Minister spoke on TV and radio. For the first time,
it became clear that the government was attempting to shift the
blame for the communal violence on to those opposed to the government.
The Prime Minister, without naming any party or organisation,
said that this was an attempt to topple the government by forces
that were defeated at the presidential elections and at the referendum
and who were jealous at the economic growth the country was making
under his government (sic!). Saturday
The curfew
that had been imposed on Friday afternoon was extended to Saturday
and Sunday. It was announced on the radio that 600 looters had
been arrested, and that those guilty of looting or murder would
be punished with death or life imprisonment. Punishment for selling,
buying or retaining stolen property would be imprisonment for
ten to twenty years. The radio report also discounted a rumour
that Sinhala peasants in the up-country were getting ready to
attack plantation workers of Indian origin and vice versa. The Minister
for State, Ananda Tissa de Alwis, came on TV and radio to suggest
that what had happened was not just a Sinhala/Tamil communal clash
but a deep-seated plan to overthrow the government. He also accused
an unnamed big power as having master-minded the operation which,
he claimed, had been well planned. For the first time, it was
suggested that certain political parties who had secret connections
with the northern terrorists were behind the violence. Still no
names were mentioned. But the
identity of these parties was soon revealed when the radio announced
that the Peoples Liberation Front (JVP), the Nava Sama Samaja
Party (NSSP) and the Communist Party (CPSL) were behind the riots
and were proscribed for the duration of the emergency, and that
severe penalties, including death or life imprisonment and loss
of civic rights, would be imposed on those having contact with
the proscribed parties or failing to report them. To any intelligent
political observer in Sri Lanka this accusation must seem ridiculous.
The NSSP and the CPSL had never taken up communal political attitudes,
except for a short time in 1964, after the fall of the first coalition
government of Mrs Bandaranaike. The JVP had been openly anti-Indian
Tamil during its 1971 insurrection, but had dropped that stance
since and not revived it. There is no doubt that the CPSL and
the JVP, which both had close ties with the Soviet Union, were
brought in to lend credence to the theory that the Soviet Union
and certain Eastern European countries had master-minded the communal
violence. But most
of those who witnessed the scenes of looting and arson recognised
the gangs as being UNP elements with particular allegiance to
two prominent cabinet ministers – one of whom had been revealed
as the force behind the communal violence that took place a month
previously at the eastern sea port of Trincomalee. The employees
of certain corporations under the ministers and the members of
the proUNP trade union of which one minister is president seem
to have played a major role in these riots. It is also
significant that a virulently anti-Tamil book in Sinhala, entitled
Protect the Buddhist Religion, by Minister Cyril Mathew, had been
circulating for some time. It was distributed free of cost. Besides,
if the government wants people to believe that the nationwide
disturbances that took place were due to the JVP, the NSSP and
the CPSL, then these parties must indeed be powerful parties! It is also
easily forgotten that the provocation to violence was offered
by the government itself, when it announced the funeral of the
thirteen dead soldiers at Kanatte for the morning of the 25th.
It was the crowd of thousands that gathered there that set on
foot the communal violence. Sunday All India
Radio announced that the Indian Foreign Minister had returned
to New Delhi and reported to Indira Gandhi that the situation
in Sri Lanka had not been brought under control, and that the
conditions in the refugee camps were not satisfactory. It also
announced that India was willing to send security forces to Sri
Lanka to bring the situation under control, if requested. I heard
that on Tuesday, two Tamils about to leave Sri Lanka by Air Lanka
were shot dead by air force guards as they walked to the plane.
This incident was witnessed by a Swiss passenger on the same plane. The Indian
radio had been announcing protests and demonstrations all over
Tamil Nadu. There had been demonstrations in Bombay and several
in Delhi, opposite the Ceylon High Commission, in which MPs of
several parties had taken part. M.G. Ramachandran, chief minister
of Tamil Nadu, led an all-party delegation from Tamil Nadu to
New Delhi to voice concern about events in Sri Lanka to the Indian
Prime Minister. In the evening
Minister Gamini Dissanayake went on TV and the radio to repeat
the previous day's arguments of his cabinet colleague. During the
day, I spent my time telephoning my Tamil relations and friends.
Only in two or three cases did I get an answer. As for the rest,
the people had either left for safer places or were in the refugee
camps. One of my brothers lived in an area which had escaped the
communal flames, but my youngest brother had been assaulted by
a mob and robbed of Rs. 900/ = – his house was saved from
the flames by his Sinhala landlord. My son-in-law's mother and
elder brother's family had a tough time in an up-country town
and ended up in the refugee camp. Their newly built house had
been burnt down. Several of my cousins had their houses burnt. Monday Several
of my Sinhala comrades called to inquire about my safety. I was
touched. Some of them brought foodstuffs, like rice, flour, sugar,
biscuits, etc. The generosity of the kind-hearted Sinhala friends
became apparent. It was almost as if they wanted to atone for
the guilt of the rest. I received
a call from Trincomalee from a friend who told me that, following
the incidents at Colombo, there was a fresh outburst of communal
violence which left most Tamils homeless. They had taken shelter
either at Nilaveli or Muttur. From Jaffna I received a telephone
call telling me that there had been no incidents – contrary
to the wild rumours that there had been heavy fighting between
the army and the terrorists. I learnt
the sad news that, in the small up-country town of Matale, the
number of refugees had swelled to 8,000. Among them were my son-in-law's
mother and his elder brother's family. Incidents seemed to have
taken place at plantation towns like Badulla, Nuwara Eliya and
Deniyaya, although no details were available. The refugees in
Kandy had swelled to over 12,000. At the University of Peradeniya
alone, there were 8,000 refugees. Reports
came in from South India about acts of self-immolation by Tamils
in protest against the violence on Tamils in Sri Lanka. There
were also reports of a petition by about seventeen MPs from the
British House of Commons to the Prime Minister calling for the
cancellation of the October visit to the UK of President Jayewardene,
'the Butcher from Sri Lanka'. A 2,000-strong demonstration was
also reported in London in protest against communal violence on
Sri Lankan Tamils. A petrol bomb had also been thrown at the Ceylon
High Commissioner's residence in London. Meanwhile,
TV stations in the USA, Europe and even the Middle East were showing
pictures of Sri Lanka in flames. Apparently, foreigners in Sri
Lanka at the time of the outbreak of the violence had not been
prevented from taking photographs and filming the scenes of looting
and arson. This led to anxious calls from all over the world.
Meanwhile, many foreigners — having had a bitter taste of
paradise —were leaving in droves and were clogging every
available plane out of Sri Lanka. The tourist industry, which
had become the second biggest earner of foreign exchange (next
to tea), had taken a serious beating – from which it is
doubtful it could recover. Tuesday Today saw
a further procession of Sinhala friends to our home — to
bring whatever foodstuffs they could lay their hands on. By noon,
we were over-stocked! Things were reported to be returning to
normal. The curfew was relaxed and people went out to buy whatever
foodstuffs they could. All over
Tamil Nadu in South India, a complete one-day general strike and
hartal was observed to protest against the violence on the Tamils
in Sri Lanka. It was joined by central government employees in
the state. For the first time, a strike took place with the support
of the central government, the state government and all political
parties of Tamil Nadu. Hunger fasts, meetings and demonstrations
took place all over, while in many cities effigies of President
Jayewardene were burnt. Indian Foreign
Minister Narasimha Rao reported to both houses of the Indian parliament
on his recent visit to Sri Lanka and the discussions he had with
the leaders of the Sri Lankan government. He told parliament that
there was some substance in press reports that Sri Lanka has appealed
to foreign powers for assistance. But he said that it was mischievous
to state that this assistance was called for against India. The
Sri Lankan High Commissioner in New Delhi had issued a statement
denying the news. The Sri Lankan government also expelled an American
correspondent of UPI who had sent out the news. With the
restoration of relative calm, the question arose of the future
of Tamils in the South of Sri Lanka. Some of the refugees from
the camps were already on their way home to Jaffna by ship. More
ships were being got ready. India, too, was sending three ships
to transport refugees from South to North. What about their future?
Could they return to their business, their professions, their
employment? Many had had their homes destroyed. There was no place
to which they could go. Could they live among the Sinhalese again?
What could they do? They could not all go back to Jaffna because
there was no economy to support all of them. It is a good guess
that most professionals – the doctors, engineers and accountants
–would seek jobs abroad. It was already reported that Canada
and Australia would ease entry restrictions for Sri Lankan Tamil
professionals. All who could would leave Sri Lanka. What about
the others who form the majority? Only the future can tell. If
one must live, one must live with dignity. Otherwise, life is
worthless. The radio
reported that although thirty-one people from the proscribed parties
were on the list to be arrested, only eighteen had been detained.
The rest had gone underground. Among the latter were the main
leaders of the JVP and the NSSP. Severe penalties were announced
for anyone harbouring them or failing to report their presence. Wednesday Bread supply
to our doorstep resumed. It was a sign of return to normal. Offices
had reopened. But no Tamils reported for work. The government
announced the convening of parliament for Thursday to discuss
the sixth amendment to the constitution, by which all parties
advocating separation would be banned and severe penalties imposed
on members. Concretely, this meant that the Tamil United Liberation
Front (TULF), with seventeen seats in parliament (its leader is
the leader of the opposition), would be banned. This was basically
a stupid move because it meant the government would have no one
to talk to. In the evening,
the radio announced a speech by the President to his cabinet.
In it, he came out with the fantastic story that, when he had
called the first round table conference of political parties for
20 July, he had intended to discuss a solution of the Tamil problem,
including granting greater powers to the Development Councils,
the withdrawal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, a general amnesty
to all those arrested under it (anyway, only a few have been left
not murdered) and the withdrawal of the army from the North. But,
he moaned, all parties had boycotted the talks and thus prevented
him from discussing his proposals for the solution of the problem. There could
be no greater political lie! It brings into question the political
honesty of the President. He seems to forget that six years have
passed since his government came to power and that, during this
long period, he has done nothing (despite election promises) to
bring about a settlement of the Tamil problem except more and
more repression. He also seems conveniently to ignore his own
interview with the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago wherein
he had said that he did not care for the opinion of the people
of Jaffna and that the conference was only to discuss the question
of the suppression of terrorism in the North. Obviously the President
had to resort to these blatant falsehoods in order to defend himself
against international condemnation. Sri Lanka's
image in the world had sunk low indeed! A Sinhalese specialist
doctor returning from London a few days ago had said that he was
ashamed to call himself a Sinhalese when he was abroad. The radio
also announced that the Constitutional Court, consisting of judges
of the Supreme Court, had ruled today that the sixth amendment
(barring two sections) was not inconsistent with the constitution.
It will undoubtedly be passed in parliament tomorrow. It is unlikely
that the TULF will attend. If prisoners can be murdered, anything
can happen to MPs. (This
is the 4th of 6 incidents given in: "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. pp.25-31.) The following
events are reported to have happened to 5 families living close
to each other in Karallapona, near Colombo. Their houses were
attacked and burned on July 26th. All 5 families then moved into
a camp for displaced persons. In the camp the sanitary conditions
were so bad that the men decided to go back to their houses to
see if they could wash there. While they were doing this a crowd
collected at their houses and all 5 men were hacked to death and
burnt. All of them had been senior government executives. At the
time no one knew why the men failed to return to the camps. Their
wives and families left the camps to travel by ship to Jaffna
still not knowing the fate of their husbands, but this is the
report which now has been transmitted to them. (This
is the 5th of 6 incidents given in: "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. pp.25-31.) At Badulla,
a senior lawyer, Mr K. B. Nadaraja, a man now in his 80s, was
in his house with his son who is also a lawyer, now employed in
Germany. The son was in Badulla on holiday with his children.
This family was highly respected in the district. A gang arrived
and chased the family from the house. Another lawyer sheltered
them, and for this act he was threatened with the same fate. The
family was rescued by members of the German Embassy. Mr. Nadaraja
and the rest of the family are reported now to have left Sri Lanka. (This
is the 6th of 6 incidents given in: "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. pp.25-31.) Also at
Badulla the District Judge, Judge Suntheralingam had to flee for
his life and was rescued by police. I heard
many other similar accounts of disaster and, in Jaffna, heard
also accounts from the families of victims who had been shot at
point blank range by soldiers in their own homes on Sunday 24th
July. I have not recounted any details of these particular incidents
due to the fact that it might put the victims' families in some
danger. There was
no suggestion that these people had any involvement with the separatist
movement or with the militants. (This
is the 2nd of 6 incidents given in: "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. pp.25-31.) I was told
by a senior government official that, on Monday July 24th, at
10.30 a.m. Tamil lawyers came to the Justice Department asking
for police protection. Their offices were being attacked and burnt.
The Inspector-General of Police was contacted and was asked to
provide police protection for the lawyers. The reply was that
no help could be given as the situation was the same all over
Colombo and all the forces were out. The government
official, who was Sinhalese, made ten trips in his own car to
take Tamil lawyers to safety and, in the process, he also was
almost massacred. He returned to his office at 6.30 p.m. shocked.
He said that city which had seemed quiet when everyone had arrived
at work that morning had been in flames and total chaos by mid-day.
By Bala,
a reader of sangam.org, who contributed his testimony to the website.
Accessed from http://www.sangam.org/articles/view2/?uid=465. Published
July 24, 2004. Like thousands
of other Tamils who lived in Colombo, I also have a story to tell
about July 1983. At that
time, I was a University of Colombo Law Faculty Student. At that
time, in the Colombo University Law Faculty there were around
30 Tamil Students. The Medical Faculty also had Tamil Students,
but it was in Kinsey Road in Borella. I was boarding
in a Burgher lady's house behind Summit Flats (Don Carolis Ave)
with some other faculty students. In that house, in another room,
there were some working people. On Sunday,
July 24 we heard about the Thirunelvely attack and talked about
that, but didn't pay much attention about it because we are very
busy on preparing for the next day's exam. Around 7.30 Sunday
night I went to the Saiva Hotel at Thimbrigasaya Junction to have
my dinner with one of my junior batch-mates. When we having the
dinner, we were discussing about the exam in Tamil. In the middle,
my friend told me that all the people sitting around us were staring
at us. I told him to ignore that. But a waiter, an old man, came
to our table and whispered "Thambimar, situation is not
good. Have your dinner quickly and go to your room." After that
only, we realized something was wrong. We asked the same waiter
to pack some string hopper parcels for the other boarders and
rushed to our room and told the others about the situation and
advised them not to go out. After discussing about this, we went
to bed. Next morning
around 5.30 one of the boarders in the next room, who had left
for work on his motorcycle, returned. When we saw his face, we
realized something bad had happened. He told us that all the Tamil
shops in the Thimbrigasaya Junction, including the one in which
we had had dinner, were burnt. We didn't know what to do. We have
to go to the University because at 9.00 o'clock we had an exam
paper. At that time, Mrs. Chandrahasan was one of our lecturers
and head of the department for the Law Faculty. Some of
our batch (or college) mates were living in Moratuwa, Wellewatte,
and Narahenpita. One of our batch mates who were living in Narahenpita
flats was attacked that night. We thought that they cannot come
for the exam and decided to go to Mrs Chandrahasan's house and
ask her to stop the exam. We walked to her house around 8 a.m.
and told our situation and asked her to stop the exams. Then Mr.
Chandrahasan told us that he had talked to J.R. and he had told
him that the riots were only around the Kanata area, but everything
would be OK. Mrs. Chandrahasan told us that, as the exam had been
scheduled already, they could not stop it, but she assured us
that, if anybody could not sit the paper, she would do something
for them and asked us to write the exam. From her
house we went to the University and found that everything seemed
normal. The roads were busy with vehicles and we saw most of our
batch mates had already arrived. We were very happy to see them,
but we had a discussion and thought of skipping the exam. We were
not in a mood to write the exams, too. But later we decided to
write the exam and went into the exam hall. While I
was writing the exam, I ran out of paper sheets. I called for
extra sheets. When I got the sheets from one of our Tamil lecturers,
I noticed her hands shivering. I looked up and asked her what
had happened. Instead of talking she just gestured for me to look
outside. When I looked I saw smoke all around the University.
I couldn't continue writing the answer papers and went out of
the hall. Fortunately,
at that time the University of Colombo Student Council was in
good hands. It was led by a leftist Group called the Pathirana
(later Mr. Pathirana was killed by the JVP) Group which was very
friendly with us. They told us they would protect us and asked
us not to worry. But how could we stop worrying? We asked them
whether they could arrange some accommodation within the Campus
compound. But after
some discussions with the University authorities, the Student
Council told us that we could stay in the University Hostel situated
close to Dhummulla Junction. They arranged a University van and
asked us to get into the van. Sinhala boys stood on the footboard
of the van. While we were going towards the Dhummulla Juction,
around 11.30 a.m. we saw a car burning, and thugs attacking an
Indian restaurant (Shanthi Vihar.) The thugs stopped our vehicle
and said they wanted to search for Tamils. The Sinhala Students
who were in the footboard replied in filth and told the driver
to drive on. My heart was almost stopped. We were hiding among
Sinhala students. The Acquinas
Hostel was within a hundred meters from the junction. We were
taken there and were locked in a room and ordered by our Sinhala
friends not to come out of that room. ( I have to mention about
this Student Group. They were against the JVP Student Union and
very friendly towards Tamils Students. This Group was fully eradicated
by the JVP later). I think the curfew was clamped down in the
afternoon and the University announced that it was closed and
asked all the students to leave the University premises. At the
hostel a Sinhala student was talking about attacking us, but he
was brought before us and was kicked severely by the Pathirana
Group as a warning for others. The other Sinhala students were
also busy going home or taking part in looting outside. Some students
also brought some looted items to the hostel. Pathirana went out
to collect some food and came back with some food and terrible
stories. I think we stayed in that hostel one night and, after
the Hindu College camp opened, we were dropped at the make-shift
refugee camp that was set up there. On July
29th I went from the refugee camp to my room to collect my ID
card. From my room I walked towards the Acquinas hostel to see
my Sinhala friends. Then one Sinhala lady came running towards
me and told me not to go in that direction. She told me "Putha
me patha ende eppa. Kottia Awa". But I kept walking and saw
Pathirana and the group were standing at the gate and watching
outside. Right away Pathirana scolded me and asked me to go to
the room quickly and told me about the Kottia Awa story. He told
me that he had seen nine Tamil bodies on that day and refused
to let me go to the refugee camp on that day. But I told him my
friends at the camp would be worry about me. Then Pathirana and
his Group walked with me from Bambalapitia to Hindu College, posing
as a group of Sinhala thugs singings Sinhala baila songs and waving.
Pathirana visited us several times in the refugee camp and visited
us even in Jaffna when we were struggling after the displacement. While this
student group protected the Tamils students, some Sinhala
students of the Law Faculty and the Medical Faculty attacked the
Tamil students. By
Esan Satkunarajah. Submitted to sangam.org. Accessed at http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/08-02_Precursor.php?uid=1875
Published on August 2, 2006. July 23rd
1983 was a sad and unforgettably black day for the Tamils. Many
people, including local and international historians, still believe
the killing of 13 Sinhalese soldiers by the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was the main reason for the July, 1983 anti-Tamil
pogrom in Sri Lanka. Contrary to this belief, the gap between
Sinhalese and Tamils widened well before the July 1983 riots due
to an unprovoked attack on the Tamil students by the Sinhalese
students in Peradeniya University on May 11th, 1983. The May
1983 attack on the Tamils students in the University had a very
damaging effect on the Tamils and their sense of belonging to
Sri Lanka. I was at the University of Peradeniya studying first
year science at that time. The ugly face of majoritarianism cropped
up in a leading educational institution in Sri Lanka for the very
first time. I did not realize that the precursor to the July,
1983 pogrom would take place in a leading educational institution
like Peradeniya University. I had a
feeling of shock and numbness as I witnessed the educated Sinhalese
students' violence against their fellow Tamil students first hand.
It was doubly shocking and horrifying to witness those Sinhalese
students, many of them our own batch-mates, whose hands were soaked
with Tamil blood. Tamil students experienced the brunt of hatred
by the majority Sinhalese students' community for 3 consecutive
days. The University authorities, intellectuals, and the country's
ruling authorities did very little to stop the violence against
the Tamil Students during those 3 days. I was living
and sharing a room in James Pries Hall in the Peradeniya residences
with 3 of my colleagues. The leading UNP student wing of Peradeniya
had planned their blood-thirsty attack on the Tamil students meticulously.
Weapons like steel rods, cycle chains, wooden rods from broken
chairs and tables, knives and ropes were gathered and well hidden
in many surrounding places where they could easily be accessed
for the attack, which was about to take place against their fellow
Tamil colleagues. Tamil students, including myself, were unaware
of what would be the worst night of our lives in the educational
institute where we were living and studying with our wonderful
dreams and hopes about our futures. A fist year
engineering faculty student, Balasooriyan, who was a co-editor
of a University Tamil Magazine, was accused of being "Tiger" just
because he prepared a cartoon with a picture of a dove in a cage
chained to a large metal ball. This picture actually was famous
in Sri Lanka at that time, as Amnesty International (AI) used
this picture and lobbied around the word to free the political
prisoners. The Colombo media angrily reacted to the AI stand and
accused them as being biased towards to the freedom fighters.
Reproducing AI's cartoon was enough for Balasooriyan to be accused
of being a member of the Tigers. In sharp contrast to what he
was accused of, the magazine Balasooriyan was a co-editor of was
critical of the Tigers and their methods of struggle. In spite
of this fact, Balasooriyan was beaten up by the Sinhalese students
and including his own batch-mates. The university authority handed
him over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Colombo,
he was taken to Colombo for interrogation and he was assaulted
severely by the CID for several days before he was released without
charge. As continuation
of this event many Tamil students were attacked and beaten up
severely with all kinds of weapons by their fellow Sinhalese batch-mates
and other students in the University for three days; some of them
even fell from balconies to escape the attacks and broke their
legs. The conduct
of the University administration and the authorities was unprecedented
at that time. Tamil students were asked to continue to attend
the lecture sessions during these periods even though the Tamil
students felt they needed to go away from the University to their
homes to reflect on what had happened to them from May 11th to
May 13th, 1983. The University authority failed to provide the
Tamils students with a safe environment to continue their studies. The motive
of the attacks on the Tamils students was to evict them from the
University permanently. The unprecedented behavior of the university
administration helped the attackers to reach their aims. Almost
95% of the Tamil students left the University and went back to
their homes. While the
majority of the Tamil students stayed in their home, the conduct
of the University was unprecedented again, as they continued to
conduct lectures and even the yearly exams. The university authority
shown very little - if not no - sympathy at all towards the Tamil
students at the time of these crises. July 1983
witnessed thousands of Tamils being killed and hundreds of them
burnt to death by the Sinhalese mobs, which were well aided by
the state forces. Many hundreds of Tamils also lost their hard-earned
properties and they were made refugees overnight in their own
country by their fellow citizens and sent back to Jaffna from
the Sinhalese area. The Sinhalese
government and its law enforcing agencies did next to nothing
to prevent this pogrom against the un-armed and innocent Tamils. By K.W.
Submitted to sangam.org. Accessed at http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/08-02_Precursor.php?uid=1875
Published on August 2, 2006. More on
the Same Incident at Peradeniya I just want
to add some more info to Easan's note. I was an assistant lecturer
at that time at Peradeniya University. Here is what happened and
how this was triggered by the UNP'ers. Some of
the students of the UNP front got hold of some Tamil students
from James Pieries and Hilda Obeyasekara halls and took them (First
year students) by force and starting from the Medical faculty
that is closer to the main entrance, they forced the Tamil students
to strike out the Sinhala names on all the signs and name boards.
When they reached the Hilda area after erasing all Sinhala names
along the way, those Sinhalese students shouted that they have
caught some pro-tiger students who were painting the Sinhala names
out. Then, as pre-planned, their fellow UNP students fanned the
flame by shouting and hitting the Tamil students. The message
was passed on to other halls and all the students started hitting
and chasing away the Tamil students. Some students
came to my residence at the campus and informed me. I had a motorbike
at that time and, as I was able to speak thoroughly in Sinhalese,
I was able to save some Tamil students to a certain extent and
helped them to move away from the campus. Most of them climbed
Hantana Hill, stayed for the night and flew to Kandy town and
escaped from there. I want to
mention two interesting things that happened at that time. While
the UNP'ers started this, the students who saved the Tamils were
JVP student activists. As most of us know, Akbar Hall was out
of the campus area and it was difficult to escape from there as
it was very visible. However, JVP students took most of the Tamil
students to their rooms and prevented the other Sinhalese students
from attacking those students. I heard that the JVP'ers even fought
with the UNP'ers to safeguard the Tamils. (It is sad that the
attitude of the JVP is changed now). The plan,
as I heard from some Sinhalese students, was to close down the
campus and send all the students home. The returning Sinhalese
students would start riots from wherever they went. Being a staff
member I attended staff meetings and I mentioned this in the meetings.
Thanks to the authority for not closing the campus and keeping
all Sinhalese students in the campus. By this, the plan to start
the riots was prevented. We can re-call
how the 1977 riots started when Jaffna Campus Sinhalese students
left the campus and spread the story that Sinhalese girls were
raped and boys were manhandled and started those riots. This incident
at Peradeniya campus was clear additional evidence that the July
pogrom was a pre-planned, organized event. Mr.
S.A. David, the president of the Gandhiyam movement. (Mr. David
was President of Gandhiyam when he was arrested a few months prior
to Black July. He was in Welikade during the Black July riots.
Refer to Nancy Murray article for more details.) There were
two violent massacres in the Welikade prison in Colombo, during
which 53 Tamil prisoners, arrested on suspicion of terrorist activity,
were killed. In addition
to other prisoners, there were also in the jail at this time 73
Tamil political prisoners who had been arrested under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act. These people had been detained originally in
army custody at Panagoda Army Camp, but recently had been transferred
to the Welikade prison. FIRST MASSACRE: In the massacre
which occurred on July 25th all of the prisoners held in B3 and
D3 were massacred and killed. On July
25, 1983 the Sinhala prisoners attacked the detainees in the Chapel
Section of the prison and murdered 35 persons, among whom were
Kuttimani, Jegan and Thangathurai. From eyewitness accounts, Kuttimani's
eyes were gouged and his blood drunk by his attackers. After killing
six Tamils including Kuttimani in one wing, the attackers killed
29 Tamils in the other wing. A boy of 16 years, Mylvaganam, had
been spared by the attackers, and was crouching in a cell. A jail
guard spotted him and stabbed him to death. The 35 dead
were heaped in front of the statue of Gautama Buddha in the yard
of Welikade prison, as Minister Athulathmudali so aptly described
as "a sacrifice to appease the bloodthirsty cravings of the Sinhala
demons." Some who
were yet alive raised their heads and called for help but were
beaten down to death in the heap. The attackers
then made entry into the other wing through openings in the first
floor but the jailers there refused to give the keys and persuaded
them to leave. SECOND MASSACRE: Twenty-eight
Tamil detainees in this wing were transferred to the ground floor
of the Youth Ward and nine of us were accommodated on the First
Floor. All was
quiet on the 26th. On the 27th at 2:30 pm there was shouting around
Youth Ward and armed prisoners scaled boundary walls and started
to break open gates in the youth Ward. Nearly 40 prisoners armed
with axes, swords, crowbars, iron pipes and wooden legs appeared
before our door and started to break the lock. Dr. Rajasundaram
walked up to the door and pleaded with them to spare us, as we
were not involved in any robberies or murders and as Hindus we
did not believe in violence and as Buddhists they should not kill.
The door suddenly opened and Dr. Rajasundaram was dragged out
and hit with an iron rod on the head. He fell among the crowd. The rest
of us broke the chairs and tables and managed to keep the crowd
at bay for half an hour. The army arrived and with tear gas dispersed
the crowd. Then the 2 soldiers lined up 8 of us and were taking
aim to shoot when the Commander called out from below to them
to come down. Then the soldiers chased us down and all who escaped
death were lined up on the footpath in front of the youth Ward.
As we walked out, we saw corpses of our colleagues around us and
we heard prisoners shouting that it was a pity we were allowed
to live. We were
ordered to run into a mini-van and removed out of the prison compound
and loaded into an army truck. We were ordered to lie face down
on the floor of the truck and a few who raised their heads were
trampled down by the soldiers. All along the way to Katunayake
Airport some soldiers kept cursing the Tamils and Eelam, using
obscene language. We were kept at the airport until early morning.
We were refused even water. We were then taken into an Air force
plane, ordered to sit with our heads down until we reached Batticaloa
Airport. From there we were taken in an open van to Batticaloa
prison. We felt we had returned to sanity and some measure of
safety. We also
find in the violence that took place, from the 25th of July, there
is a certain pattern of leadership, where gangs of youth were
going about in vans and bicycles and motor-bicycles and cars,
inflaming their supporters in various towns and the city and violence
and arson took place after that. We found that in Colombo, we
found it along the Colmobo-Kandy-Galle Road, we found it in Kandy,
Badulla and Bandarawela. That is not a sudden outburst of mobs,
surely? But was planned and carefully nurtured over a period of
time. We found also that the murder of thirteen of our soldiers
in Jaffna took place on a very significant day, the day being
23rd of July 1983. It was six years before that on the 23rd of
July 1977, that I myself and my Government was sworn-in. Exactly
on that day, also a Saturday, that we find this outburst, beginning
with the death of 13 soldiers in Jaffna. That was the signal for
the uprising which took place in certain parts of this country.
I would therefore like you to remember that we had the JVP, which
initiated the insurrection of 1971, who were released by me, as
I thought we would give them a chance, return to the democratic
system, contest the elections. But having lost the Presidential
election, having lost the referendum, having lost the by-elections,
they thought the only way to return to power before the six years
were over was by violence. -- J.
R. Jeyawardene, in his speech delivered to the nation on August
22, 1983. Published in "His Excellency the President's Address
to the Nation on 22.08.83". Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan Government Information
Department Government Press. The Last
week of July of 1983 saw the peaceful calm of Sri Lanka shattered
by a wave of ethnic rioting. Much has been written of the long
history of terrorism by minority groups in the North which precipitated
this catastrophic reaction from the majority community in the
South; much will probably be said in the future of the national
tragedy brought about by the agitation for a separate Sate in
Sri Lanka. When the
story comes to be written, people may well ask of those who preached
the doctrine of separatism: who wanted a separate State in Sri
Lanka? -- from
the preface of "Sri Lanka – Who Wants a Separate State?"
Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan Department of Information. 28 Nov 1983.
SPEECHES REPRODUCED IN THE PROCEEDINGS
OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AGAINST
TAMILS IN SRI LANKA, 23-24 APRIL 1984. Note: David Selbourne is one of the journalists mentioned above who was evicted by the Sri Lankan government for sending reports on Black July to the outside world.
Prof.
David Selbourne, Ruskin College, Oxford Hon'ble
Speaker, distinguished friends, Leaders of the TULF, my fellow
delegates and Ladies and Gentlemen. As you can
observe for yourself it is right for me to describe myself as
an outsider. But I think it is unnecessary to be a Tamil to understand
the words "Aiyoo – Ammah, amah". Every son, every mother
understands such words. They are part of a universal language
of grief which I know from my visits to Sri Lanka is heard in
every Tamil household. This language requires no Translators.
This languages requires no interpreters. It is the common languages
of humanity. It is the common language of the tormented and it
is mankind which must respond to the language which understands
itself so well. My presence
today speaking for myself, is the least that is possible to do
to exercise a human duty to stand up and to speak up for the civil
liberties, for the human rights, for the human dignities of my
fellow human beings. It is not difficult to be here or to speak
in these terms to show that it is a level which goes far beyond
the reports of Amnesty International issues such as this one.
Or the reports of the International Commission of Jurists. Those
are the levels which the International community understands the
plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Previous
Speakers have spoken about the gross violations of human and civil
rights in Sri Lanka, the breach of International covenants, "the
inhuman and the degrading treatment" as Amnesty International
described it of prisoners held in custody. And I think the international
community has begun to be aware of the enormity of the July crimes
and for me, speaking as a Lawyer, the equal enormity of the failure
to bring those who committed those crimes to justice. The admitted
involvement of the Sri Lankan State in those crimes is to me,
speaking for myself, an astounding act of cynicism, that it should
on the one hand admit the preplanning of those crimes. As Mr.
Ananda Krishna Rao said, to point at themselves, to the systematic
nature of what took place in July and yet to have failed to mobilise
the ordinary processes of the law under the Rule of Law in order
to bring the malefactors to justice. Now there
is another aspect of this which is truly international. It is
we, the other nations of the world who have become, inpart, responsible
for tackling the problems of the flight of Tamil Refugees from
their own country. It is not possible for the Sri Lankan Government
to wash its hands like Pontius Pilate of the crimes which it had
itself committed and on the other hand to blame the members of
the international community for taking a legitimate interest.
Whether as civil right workers, whether as Journalists, whether
as lawyers, whether as politicians, it is impossible to blame
such people for responding to the fact that it is we who must
share with the Tamil people, the moral obligations and practical
difficulties of providing homes for those who have been driven
from their homeland. In this respect, it is very much an international
issues. For myself,
I have the honour as you know of being expelled from Sri Lanka.
What I find unacceptable in my own treatment as a responsible
Journalist working for "The Guardian" working for 'The New Statesman',
working for the 'Illustrated Weekly' of Bombay; What I find unacceptable
is that without having any explanation and in deeply offensive
circumstances, I should have been removed from the country late
at night surrounded by members of the Internal Security apparatus;
removed by Jeep from my Hotel and taken in intimidating circumstances
to Colombo Airport for the presumed crime of having attempted
to tell the truth as far as I could judged it as an outsider.
An Hon'ble profession and under obligation to seek out the circumstances
of ill doing and to report them to the world which has every entitlement
to know. There is a right to know. Now in the
circumstances of my expulsion I can say here for the first time
that I am even more deeply offended by the export to the United
Kingdom of Sri Lankan masses; of intimidation of people like myself
who are carrying out our ordinary profession or moral obligation
in this respect. I have here
a letter which I have not actually revealed before which I have
kept to myself for my own reasons but which I think is necessary
to discuss openly because it is so offensive to the norms of civilized
practice. Because this kind of deep violation by the Sri Lankan
authorities requires to be known. As you are aware that these
are not private matters even when I received secret communications,
anonymous letters, telephone calls to England in my own home for
exercising the rights of a United Kingdom citizen under the British
Law to speak as part of my professional occupation and to write
in the British Press. Why should I and my wife or my children
receive night time phone calls from within the United Kingdom
ordering me with what insulting impertinence to keep my lips sealed
in my own country. I can quite
understand the Sri Lankan authorities feeling alarmed at about
the reporting of the Sri Lankan affairs in the Sri Lankan Press.
God knows that the news is not reported in Sri Lanka but to try
to extend the impediments to a free press on the other side of
the world seems to be deeply offensive. "You have created" says
the letters from Colombo. "You have create da very bad image of
Sri Lanka by publishing distorted and misleading news. May be
you have received rewards from the Tamil Tigers." Now continues
this courteous letter "because of a few dirty black dregs like
you, the whole confidence in our country has broken down." But
how strong must the Sri Lankan State be that two or three articles
in some newspapers can bring down the whole state apparatus. "Our
Sinhalese Lions," continues this letter, "Have the aim of Killing
all those who actively support Eelam. You," (The word you is underlined)
"are one of them. We will take revenge within 3 months from today.
Either we will kill you or one of your children, who is under
15 years of age, if available," "But", says this letter, making
a special exception for women, "not your wife." "To avoid this
make a public apology in person to the President of Sri Lanka".
Militantly signed 'Sinhalese Lions' and I am informed my apology
(which needless to say I will not make for telling the truth)
must be published in the Sri Lankan Daily Newspapers. These are
relatively minor matters compared with the torments which the
Tamil People themselves have suffered in Sri Lanka. I don't make
a great deal of this I treat this with the contempt it deserves.
No journalist will be intimidated by this kind of thing. Nevertheless
its importance is this: that in many years of reporting on Indian
political affairs; in many years of reporting which included reporting
often of or very hostile kind on the Indian emergency for example,
about which I wrote a book, I never received such letters. Not
once in India did any one seek to interfere with my freedom of
movement or freedom of expression and whatever criticisms may
be made of the Indian political system by outsiders a greater
degree of freedom existed in that society as seen by the fact
that even a bitter critic of the erosion of civil liberties emergency
in India should have been allowed to say what he wished to say. The international
community to which I was referring before is well aware of the
kinds of facts that Mr. Sambandan has produced. The nature of
the prevention of Terrorism Act is well understood to be what
the International Commission of Jurists has called it 'an ugly
blot on the Statue book of a civilized country'. Even in
Northern Ireland where 2300 people not 230, but 2300 people have
lost their lives since 1969; we do not have a prevention of Terrorism
Act which contains provisions of the kind which are on the Statute
Book in Sri Lanka. There is a bitter struggle going on in Northern
Ireland: deeply offensive in similar ways to what offends us in
Sri Lanka, deeply offensive to civil liberties and human rights
in the United Kingdom also. Yet the prevention of Terrorism Act
only permits the detention in custody without being brought before
a magistrate for 7 days. Not 18 months but 7 days when there have
been 2300 deaths since 1969 in a country whose population is a
fraction of Sri Lanka's. So, I think the International Commission
of Jurists is right to argue that the prevention of Terrorism
Act, more wide ranging in its provisions than even the legislation
of South Africa, is far in excess of what would be required for
the Sri Lankan authorities to deal with their admittedly difficult
internal problems. The secret
burial of bodies to which the previous speaker referred is a provision
which exists no where else in the World, even in those countries
facing much more severe internal political problems than Sri Lanka.
It is a provision which lawyers and civil libertarians know is
a license to murder. Churchmen, Jurists, human life activists
find provision 15….. deeply repugnant to the most basic
canons of civil liberty. It is offensive to religion as well as
offensive to law. It offends some of the deepest cultural commitments
of a people that insist on the respectful treatment of the dead.
The abusive treatment of the living is one thing but contempt
for the dead insults a people such as the Tamil people with deep
respect for the proper observation of those rites which will be
fitting for the dead to every society. Now I want
to end by making reference to two other features which seen to
be important. The failure of the Sri Lankan Government to hold
a kind of serious inquiry into the events of July; the failure
to make amends for the killing of so many innocents who included
my friends, which included the cruel killing of one of Sri Lanka's
noblest sons Dr. Rajasundaram. Such kind of atrocity of a man
whose efforts in defence of the most down trodden in Sri Lanka
were truly noble and heroic, a Gandhian, a man dedicate to the
cause of redeeming and relieving human sufferings, that he should
have been so brutally done to death without remedy and without
redress and without an inquiry. If such a man can be done to death
without inquiry, without the bringing of the guilty to justice,
then it will probably fall to International Tribunals to carry
out an inquiry into the July events. One of the positive suggestions
that I intend to make during these discussions will be some kind
of Tribunal on an international basis with distinguished judges,
or ex-judged and juries from other countries should take evidence
on what transpired in those days and hold their hearings in a
place where those who give evidence and testify to what took place,
can be heard, and arrive at some conclusion as impartially and
objectively as possible. I hope this proposition might be discussed. I end with
a plea to the distinguished political prisoners. Presently in
Sri Lankan jails such as Fr. Singarayer and Mrs. Nirmala Nithiyanandan,
who cannot be left forgotten in Sri Lankan jails. It appalls me
as an outsider that more is not being done in forums of India
and outside to focus upon the plight of people such as they who
have been caught up in a net of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
There are many others, thousands may be of Tamil Youth who are
now in custody and it is in a sense, wrong to pick on particular
individuals to high light their particular plight. Other matters
of a more political kind are not for me to discuss. Nevertheless
it seems to me that as in the case with political prisoners in
the jails of other detentions, there are certain individuals whose
integrity and dignity requires them to be made a focus of international
attention. And I would urge on this meeting to consider this proposition
also. But one
thing does strike me. President Jayewardene has recently told
the Indian press that he is continuing the preserve democracy
in Sri Lanka. We in the international community in whose countries
are refugees from this democracy, who finds this democracy strangely
undemocratic. We in the international community are entitled to
reply to President Jayewardene. 'If you are continuing to preserve
democracy in Sri Lanka, will you please use different methods.'
He has also said (and I keep my files carefully) that he is stuck.
'I am stuck' says President Jayewardene. Stuck is the word he
uses. 'I am a prisoner of circumstances'. He is not a prisoner
in Pangoda or Elephant Camp. He is a prisoner of circumstance.
'I am a prisoner of the law', he says 'I am a prisoner of the
constitution' and 'I am prisoner of the political party.' 'I cannot
throw my weight about'. And yet consider a moment. President Jayewardene
is prisoner in his own country. He is head of State: President
Jayewardene is head of State. President Jayewardene the prisoner
who is stuck is the head of the executive. The prisoner President
Jayewardene is head of the Government. President Jayewardene the
prisoner is head of the party. Minster of Defence, the prisoner
President. Jayewardene appoints the heads of the armed forces,
the Ministers of his government, President Jayewardene, the prisoner,
head of the government, the had of the party, the C-in-C of armed
forces and the Minister of Defence all rolled into one figure.
What is it that prevents him from assuming responsibility in his
own country for the action of his own executives and security
forces? And it is the failure on the part of the Sri Lankan government
to accept responsibility for their own deeds and misdeeds which
has brought us here. Because it is us; we and many others who
are not here, who now bear the responsibility in their terms for
dealing with those who have fled from this Sri Lankan democracy. Let me end
by saying that it is an honour to be here in Madras, and I am
sure that I speak for the rest of the delegates. I am grateful
to you for your hospitality, for the warmth of your friendship.
And I individually salute you here in your absence and thereafter
call you my Tamil brothers. Mr.
Karl Henrich Nygaard, Group Leader, Human Rights Committee, Norway Honourable
Minister, Leaders of the Tamil Parties, Fellow Delegates, Ladies
and Gentlemen, I am very
thankful to be invited to this conference to learn about the situation
in Sri Lanka. Before I left Norway, I promised my Tamil friends
to give you the greetings from this small country up in the cold
North. Totally
there are 350 Tamil sin Norway, 200 of them live in Bergan, my
home town. Last year after the massacres in Sri Lanka, they took
initiative to collect the members of all political parties in
Norway, to give the information about the situation for Tamils.
This meeting resulted in a solidarity group for Sri Lankan Tamils—The
Tamil Human Rights group. I represent this group here today. This
is a local initiative of their Local politicians in this town.
I promise to bring back to Norway all the information which will
come out from this Conference. It is necessary
to inform people all over the world about the Sri Lankan situation.
But what can we do? We in Europe, we in Norway? We can first of
all bring information about the situation. This conference is
a place to get such information. Secondly we must put pressure
on our own government to use pressure on the Sri Lankan regime
through direction contact with Sri Lanka through United Nations
and other International Organisations. Last year, my group had
meetings with the Foreign Minister of Norway to inform him and
the Government of Norway about the Sri Lankan Tamils and their
situations. We tried to do this year too. The third thing that
we must do is the proposal which came from Mr. Selbourne. It is
a very good proposal. There must be an International Tribunal
as soon as possible. I think Norway which has had such Tribunals
before in our country will support that thought. I am very
thankful to be here and I will give all the information back to
my friends in Norway. Madam
Joyce Yedid of the Bar Association of Quebec and Member of Amnesty
International Hon'ble
Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like first of all to thank
you for giving me this opportunity of possibly sharing certain
experiences that we have had in Canada. And, secondly, to emphasise,
possibly, the importance of this kind of conference, at the international
level. Canada is
very far away country and the only knowledge that we had of Sri
Lanka was a paradise in the Indian Ocean, a land of abundance
and beauty. No one knew about the problems, economic, cultural
and ethnic, of that land. The first
inkling that occurred were quire misleading. Into Canada trickled
rumours from West Germany that there were hundreds and hundreds
of refugees in Germany, in France and in various other countries
from Sri Lanka. The Canadian Government considers these people
as economic refugees. And economic refugees are not refugees as
recognized under international Law since according to Canadian
Law which repeats the words of the Geneva Convention in 1951,
'A refugee is a person who escapes persecution only for the following
five reasons namely race, religion, nationality, membership in
a special group and political opinion'. An economic refugee is
not a refugee in Law. So we were warned and advised that there
were a large number of alleged refugees in European countries
who were on their way to Canada. That was the first information
to change the idea of Sri Lanka, a Paradise which existed in the
minds of most of the population; and even so, I would not say
most of the population, but people involved with the refugees. I was not
personally involved with any of the early arrivals from Germany,
because these were the first refugees that came. And I think that
kind of experience, I merely repeated to you so as to emphasis
the importance of hosting this kind of conference; the importance
of publicising to the world what the situation is. I certainly
have no intention of addressing myself to the sources of the problem.
They may be cultural, they may be historical, they may be a combination
or racial. I am quite sure that there are many people here much
better suited and eligible than I am to discuss these matters.
But one thing is sure in countries like Canada, very little is
known about the source of the problems and this I think accounts
for a great deal; ignorance accounts a great deal for the lack
of understanding and possibly lack of sympathy. So what
I would like to urge is the necessity of undertaking on an International
scale the kind of Publicity and information campaign that would
permit the world to see and understand the source as well as the
manifestation of the problem. On the legal foundations I don not
think I want to address myself either, not with standing the fact
that I am an attorney because I am quite sure that there are many
more distinguished delegates here who are Members of the Bar or
Members of the Judicature who can address question far better
than I can. Certainly I have no intention of repeating or expanding
any Prevention of Terrorism Act or emergency legislation, or violation
from the legal point of view. I think
that what I would like to share with you is possibly the experience
of most of the workers involved in refugee work in Canada. There
are possibly two or three thousand people who are claiming refugee
status in Canada and I have seen and spoken to a large number
of them personally. And in fact what I would like to share with
you is the emotional cost and the physical cost of the violation
of human rights. In Canada,
we have instituted a system that provides for so called group
refugees but the Tamils of Sri Lankan do not appear at the present
time to fall within any such category such as the boat people
or Groups of people who seem to quality as refugees. They undergo
the individual process of refugee which is a very long and very
painful process. Mr. David Selbourne mentioned the necessity of
having a court of Law, some sort of International Tribunal where
it would be possible to record evidence. But that is what we do
everyday in Canada. People are placed under oath and have to explain
and justify why they are refugees. And I can tell you that I have
heard hundreds of stories. The majority
of refugees that have come to Canada fall within a certain frame
work. The earliest arrivals are possibly the most involved members
of the TULF and other political groups and organisations. They
primarily appear to be young men who were politically active for
possibly reasons that originally were not necessarily violation
of human rights in a physical sense namely; there was obviously
clear discrimination of a legislative nature which led to frustration,
which led to political involvement; and which led to the repression
by the police and army. Those young men fled wherever they could.
Originally, I believe, to Germany, France and other European countries. Unfortunately,
the German system either unwittingly or by policy did not accept
them. In fear of returning to their country they started to flock
to Canada known as a country that welcomes and treats the refugees
fairly. These were the first refugees that we saw in Canada. The
refugees who came in the summer of 1983 came primarily of directly
from Sri Lanka. They are essentially but not exclusively refugees
from Colombo. They are not heavily politicised. They are not young
men and women who were fighting for their lost rights. They were
people whose homes were burnt, whose families were injured, whose
businesses were destroyed, and who in very actual and immediate
fear for their lives took the first plane out of Colombo. Canada
just happened to be a place they came to. That's the second group
of refugees and it included as well many members of the Tamil
community living in Singalese areas. The experiences that they
recount are not in abstract terms anything that I want to discuss. But what
I want to talk about are the consequences of the violation of
human rights and the consequences of importance that we can see
are obviously the disruption and the destruction of family units.
And I think this is the primary element that we noticed. In Canada
this may not seem as devastating as it appears to the Tamil Community.
Canada is not a country where family are very closely knit. So
if a young man and a young woman or three young men leave the
family and go to foreign lands it is not necessarily a tragedy.
But I think one has to understand that within the compacts of
Tamil life it is a tragedy. It is a tragedy to the family but,
who, may be, find some relief in the knowledge and hope that at
least their children are safe. Because, needless to say, that
every family wants their children to be safe; whether they are
Tamil, Canadian, British, or anything else. So, there is a certain
comfort I supposed, in the knowledge that one's children are hopefully
free and certainly safe. But nonetheless, I think the process
of family destruction and disruption is a very serious one. The other
consequences that we witnessed are divergent according to where
the refugees come from and how well they are able to integrate
into Canadian life. The young
men and women who are in Canada and they are primarily young men,
and most of them came from Colombo but some of them came from
the North; these young men ad women face very difficult life in
Canada. The climate is different, the geography is different,
the economic conditions are different. They find themselves without
family, without the support of family, without a frame work, a
net work that gives support to the Tamil culture which we do not
have in Canada. That very real thing is one of the first obstacles
and one of the first difficulties. The second
type of difficulty we noticed is that they exhibit all the tragedy
of refugees as opposed to immigrants. Immigrants choose to leave
their homelands. Immigrants decide that life is too difficult
in one's own lands: I will pack up and take my family and leave.
Refugees live in a perpetual state of wishing to return to their
homelands. And I think that is characteristic of most of the Tamil
young men and women that we have in Canada. They have a yearning
to return to their homelands and everything is considered temporary.
In Canada, they live with the hope and expectation that one day
they are going to their home. And I do not know if you understand
really the consequences of living under these conditions, but
they are grave and very difficult in terms of home cost. We have
in Canada many young men who are coming out of prisons in Jaffna,
Batticaloa, Elephant Camp and other Sri Lankan jails and who fled
their country. This has led to another type of problem that we
have noticed. A lot of these young men have suffered in a very
physical way. They carry the marks of their torture: letter brands
on their body with hot Irons, Cigarette burns all over their body;
scars. These we know from testimony, from medical reports. Some
of these scars are apparent and some of these have continuing
effects. It is very common among Tamil young me to be vomiting
blood after 3 years: they are still doing it at home in Canada.
A lot of Tamil young me have serious stomach problems. A lot of
them have permanent injuries to their limbs, bodies and to their
hearing. They carry the marks of their detention in very many
respects and some of these will be permanent. They also
carry other marks which cannot be seen but which are much more
real in the sense: fear, hatred. Some of these young men and women
have admitted to me that they repeatedly wake up in terror, screaming.
And that is true, especially of the young men from the North who
are more tougher because they have been in prison more often,
they have been tortured more often, and more extensively. So I
suppose they are tougher but how much tougher can you get? The people
Colombo, a year after, are still, in my opinion, in a state of
shock. All of them repeatedly told me that they suffered nightmares
of their burning homes or of the mobs and thugs coming towards
them with iron bars and other implements of attack. And I think,
as many speakers have mentioned before that ultimately the government
will have to accept responsibility for that. It was either unwilling,
or unable to control the mobs and it will have to accept responsibility
for the situation. I have spoken to some of the Tamil women who
have been raped and the consequences are devastating. The young
men and young women in Canada are continuously living and reliving
those experiences. And every time that there is trouble anywhere
in Sri Lanka there is a rush for the telephones to find out whether
their families are safe or unsafe. These may be undocumented things.
But nonetheless we can see and feel the anxiety and the terror
with which these young men and women are living. I want to
conclude with one remark. Their hopes and dreams are to come back
home. With all this, Sri Lanka is still their home. But what I
think is very tragic, is this. It appears to me as an outsider
that the youth, the Tamil Youth of Sri Lanka is outside the country.
It is the people who have been bereft of its youth and a nation
deprived of its youth is in fact deprived of the future. This
is one thing which I think we should all think about.
EVICTION OF TAMILS FROM COLOMBO, JUNE 2007 Even by
Sri Lanka's standards, the forced eviction of 375 Tamils from
the capital of Colombo last week seemed a step too far. The June
7 evictions, carried out by police and soldiers in a nighttime
raid on areas of Colombo populated by the Tamil ethnic minority,
was the latest chapter in the brutal civil war that pits government
forces against Tamil-separatist militants in the country's north.
"We were herded into buses like cattle and even when we were told
we could go back to Colombo, we were warned to finish our work
there and go back to our home towns [immediately]," says a 19-year-old
who gave his name as Ramalingam, of the raid in which he was swept
up. … Local human
rights groups accused the government of a policy tantamount to
ethnic cleansing — some evictees had as little as half an
hour to get ready according to activists, and many were bused
to places where they knew no one. The government defense spokesperson
Keheliya Rambukwella initially said that there had been no forced
evictions, and that all those who had left the capital had done
so voluntarily. Later, other government officials said that those
evicted had been suspected of plotting to bomb government installations
in the capital. … But human
rights groups say the new sense of fear instilled in Tamil civilians
won't disappear anytime soon. "When they [Tamil civilians] ask
us whether we could guarantee that this would not happen again,
we can not give an answer, there is a lot of fear among those
who got caught in the drive, it will take some time for them feel
safe here in Colombo," says Rukshan Fernando of the Colombo-based
Law and Society Trust, which is helping some of the Tamils who
returned to the capital after the Supreme Court ruling. -- "
'Ethnic Cleaning' in Sri Lanka?" Lasantha Wickrematunge. Time,
11 June 2007. Armed Sri
Lankan police today packed hundreds of ethnic minority Tamils
into buses and drove them from the country's capital to war-torn
northern and eastern districts - an effort, say police, to clear
the city of "terrorists". In a series of night-time raids, police
stormed Tamil areas of Colombo and forced people staying in cheap
guesthouses to leave at gun point. In all, 291 men and 85 women
were sent off in seven buses to districts that are on the frontline
of fierce fighting between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan
army. Human rights groups described the police action as tantamount
to "ethnic cleansing". … -- "Sri
Lanka accused of ethnic cleansing of Tamils." Randeep Ramesh,
South Asia correspondent. Guardian, 7 June 2007. Opposition
Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, yesterday, compared the plight of
the Tamils under the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, to that
of the Jews in Germany during World War 2 and of Black Africans,
during the apartheid era in South Africa. Speaking in Parliament
on the government led eviction of Tamils in Colombo, Mr. Wickremesinghe
said that Jews and Black Africans had faced similar persecution
in the past, at the hands of Germans and Whites respectively. He said
the government's actions violated the Constitution, which clearly
stated that all citizens of Sri Lanka must be free from torture
and inhuman and degrading treatment and had the right to free
movement and to choose their area of residence. "We are also concerned
about the security of the country. If the government suspects
anyone they can produce that person before a magistrate and remand
the suspect, or release the person," he said. He noted
that when people were evicted from the lodgings in such an arbitrary
manner, they would return in anger to blast bombs. Mr. Wickremesinghe
added that the situation would bring shame upon Sri Lanka at the
European Parliament sessions, and queried as to why the government
was creating such a crisis for the country. -- "Ranil
on forced evictions of Tamils." Daily Mirror, 8 June 2007. Ranil
Wickremasinghe's commentary on the forced evictions of hundreds
of Tamils from Colombo in June 2007. Ranil Wickremasinghe is the
nephew of J.R. Jayewardene, and was a minister in the J.R. Jayewardene
government during Black July, 1983. Correspondents
say that hundreds of Tamils, many from impoverished rural areas,
live in boarding houses in Colombo while they seek work at home
or abroad. Many ethnic Tamils complain they have been deliberately
targeted by the security forces, detained and searched. One man
forced to board one of the buses called the private local radio
station Sirisa FM from a mobile phone. "The police came and took
us and put everyone on the bus," he said, saying the bus was about
32km (20 miles) outside the capital, heading northeast. "We don't
know where we are being taken." Human rights
campaigners and other observers say they are shocked at what they
say is a serious violation of human rights. "This is almost like
a variation of ethnic cleansing," Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of
the independent Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank told
Reuters. "It is quite appalling." -- "Police
evict Tamils from Colombo." BBC News, 7 June 2007. At the last
police station in Wellawatte, just south of Colombo, the returnees
were made to go through a registration process that took another
three hours. "We were herded into buses like cattle and even when
we were told we could go back to Colombo, we were warned to finish
our work there and go back to our hometowns, and not stay on in
Colombo," said 19-year-old Ramalingam from Jaffna. -- "Sri
Lanka: Gov't in Serious Image Crisis." Amantha Perera. IPS News
Service, 11 June 2007. "We have
to do search operations and when we arrest suspicious people...
you don't know who is who," he said. "We can't
arrest 300 people and then detain them," he added. "So you
tell them: 'You don't have any legal business in Colombo, there
is a security problem in Colombo, you are the people who are suspected
of... we don't want to detain you, go back to your homes.'" -- Defence
Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, quoted in "Sri Lanka accuses 'bullying'
West" by Roland Buerk, BBC News, 12 June 2007. Letter to
Canadian Prime Mister Stephen Harper on 9 July 2007: Rt. Hon.
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister Dear Prime
Minister: I am writing
to you to express my deepest concern about the deteriorating human
rights situation in Sri Lanka, and also to urge the Government
of Canada to take necessary measures to serve those in the northeast
who cannot easily access the Canadian High Commission in Colombo. Last month's
expulsion of about 400 Tamils from Colombo has been soundly condemned
by reputable human rights organizations and by the international
community. I have seen statements by the Sri Lankan Ministry of
Defence claiming that only those who could not provide a valid
reason for being in the capital were evicted. Such statements
only confirm that Sri Lankans of Tamil origin do not have freedom
of movement in Sri Lanka, or free access to the capital. My constituency
office staff as well as constituents of Tamil origin have told
me of the great difficulties experienced by those in the northeast
who need to travel to the High Commission in Colombo, especially
on immigration matters. In one case, a family member of a constituent
died during the long delays attempting unsuccessfully to send
paperwork and subsequently to travel to the capital. For many,
travel to Colombo is impossible. My colleague,
Hon. Dan McTeague, has written to you to ask that Canada consider
opening a consulate in Jaffna that is capable of providing immigration
services. I strongly support this suggestion, if it can be done
securely and without undue risk to personnel. I urge your
government to take immediate steps to address this situation,
and I would appreciate being kept informed of how your government
is responding. Sincerely, Mark Holland,
M.P. |
