“With Black July, dawned the era of gun culture, disappearances, child soldiers, collapse of rule of law and erosion of democracy. Within the first ten years of UNP rule from 1977, the draconian Constitution was further strengthened with 16 further constitutional amendments - with the two notorious 4th and 6th.”
________________
by Dew Gunasekara
(July 23, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The ugliest and the most barbarous event in the post-independent Sri Lanka entered the pages of history 25 years ago. Some people ask why these blackest events are being reminded ritually in the month of July year after year.
I believe that it is of no other reason than to reassure ourselves to see that such an event should never be allowed to recur.
The General Elections in 1977 brought about the strongest Government in power since Independence with a five-sixth majority. The election results provide evidence that no party since the Independence did ever get such an overwhelming backing from the ethnic and religious minorities of the country.
Mystery prevails how under such a Government with sympathy and goodwill of the minorities, communal disturbances erupted within a few months of it being installed in power.
The first communal clashes occurred on August 15 in the estate areas of Sabaragamuwa. So, the events sporadically spread elsewhere in 1978, 1979 and 1981 culminating in the Black July of 1983.
The year 1981 witnessed the burning of the Jaffna Library with 94,000 books and the dirtiest ever the District Development Election. On July 23 1983 with the bodies of 13 soldiers having been brought to a single place for cremation in Borella, emotions were allowed to run high for the eruption of virulence and violence unprecedented in our recent history.
July 23 to 30 was the darkest week of the Black July where it was officially estimated that 471 Tamils were killed, 8,077 of their houses burnt, 3,769 persons injured, 3,835 cases of looting. Fifty three Tamil prisoners in the Welikada jail were brutally murdered.
As a result of this event the biggest refugee problem erupted making more than seven hundred thousand people homeless, unprecedented in the history of our country, of which more than 400,000 were forced to leave the country.
It was the Black July of 1983 which signalled the outbreak of the on-going war in the North-East, with the virtual division of the country.
The war commenced with a military budget of Rs. 1.8 billion in 1983 and it has risen to Rs.117 billion by 2007.
In all, from both sides a little less than 100,000 may have been killed by now - leave alone thousands of those who have been disabled. Damage to property is incalculable. Ethnic relations completely collapsed with mutual fear and suspicion between Sinhalese and Tamils escalated.
With Black July, dawned the era of gun culture, disappearances, child soldiers, collapse of rule of law and erosion of democracy. Within the first ten years of UNP rule from 1977, the draconian Constitution was further strengthened with 16 further constitutional amendments - with the two notorious 4th and 6th.
Amendments to the Constitution, whereby the General Elections were postponed and 18 elected MPs from the North and East were removed from the Parliament. The banning of CP, NSSP and JVP was a pretext for the perpetration of all those Machiavellian acts of the JR regime.
With the Black July, fortunes of Prabhakaran dawned; all other Tamil groups and parties being decimated or marginalised. The physical elimination of all leaders of rival Tamil political parties gave way for the emergence of Prabhakaran. Thanks to perpetrators of Black July the most murderous, blood thirsty terrorist group in the world was given birth to.
The process of brutalisation and criminalisation of the present day Sri Lankan society was commenced with the onset of the Black July.
In the history of our country, the entire Sinhalese people were most unjustly portrayed internationally as the most barbarous ethnic group of the modern society while the few perpetrators of those ugliest crimes were allowed to escape unpunished.
It is still afresh in our minds how the Tamil people who were the main victims of Black July voted at the 1982 Presidential Elections for the Sinhala leaders just a few months prior to the Black July.
Despite the boycott campaigns of the TULF and other Tamil groups, between 50 per cent to 80 per cent of the Tamil people went to polls in the 1982 Presidential elections even in the North and East, the lowest being in the Jaffna district with 50 per cent, still relatively high.
It is on record that 60 per cent of the Jaffna people who polled, in fact voted for Sinhala candidates, the highest being obtained by Hector Kobbekaduwa of the SLFP. The figures for the other districts were more eloquent.
Vavuniya - 85 per cent
Trincomalee - 89 per cent
Batticaloa - 60 per cent
Digamadulla - 95 per cent
This was the response of the Tamils and Muslims in the North and East to the Sinhala leaders. Let the people in the South remember this stark fact of history.
All this goodwill evaporated with the Black July. The Tamil people were driven to the clutches of the LTTE, thanks to the perpetrators of Black July, engineered by those in power then.
The international image of Sri Lanka was completely tarnished. The traditional Indo-Sri Lanka relations were strained to the lowest ebb. In my view the emergence of terrorist, chauvinistic JVP in the South too was a by-product of the Black July. How people in the South suffered during the 1987-1990 period are still fresh in their minds and hearts, with the killing spree by JVPers as well as Green Tigers.
In the first round the finest leaders and cadres of the CP, LSSP, NSSP and SLMP were brutally murdered. Of course, they gave their live for the cause of national unity and communal harmony. The killing spree continued and thousands of UNP and SLFP supporters too lost their lives. Can this black chapter of our recent history be forgotten or be allowed to be obliterated?
Much water has flowed under the bridges of Sri Lankan rivers since the Black July. We remain where we were having failed to weed out the root cause of terrorism through the search of a political solution to the national question. Even if we forgive those perpetrators of Black July, we can never forget the event.
( The writer is General Secretary Communist Party of Sri Lanka.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
________________
by Dew Gunasekara
(July 23, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The ugliest and the most barbarous event in the post-independent Sri Lanka entered the pages of history 25 years ago. Some people ask why these blackest events are being reminded ritually in the month of July year after year.
I believe that it is of no other reason than to reassure ourselves to see that such an event should never be allowed to recur.
The General Elections in 1977 brought about the strongest Government in power since Independence with a five-sixth majority. The election results provide evidence that no party since the Independence did ever get such an overwhelming backing from the ethnic and religious minorities of the country.
Mystery prevails how under such a Government with sympathy and goodwill of the minorities, communal disturbances erupted within a few months of it being installed in power.
The first communal clashes occurred on August 15 in the estate areas of Sabaragamuwa. So, the events sporadically spread elsewhere in 1978, 1979 and 1981 culminating in the Black July of 1983.
The year 1981 witnessed the burning of the Jaffna Library with 94,000 books and the dirtiest ever the District Development Election. On July 23 1983 with the bodies of 13 soldiers having been brought to a single place for cremation in Borella, emotions were allowed to run high for the eruption of virulence and violence unprecedented in our recent history.
July 23 to 30 was the darkest week of the Black July where it was officially estimated that 471 Tamils were killed, 8,077 of their houses burnt, 3,769 persons injured, 3,835 cases of looting. Fifty three Tamil prisoners in the Welikada jail were brutally murdered.
As a result of this event the biggest refugee problem erupted making more than seven hundred thousand people homeless, unprecedented in the history of our country, of which more than 400,000 were forced to leave the country.
It was the Black July of 1983 which signalled the outbreak of the on-going war in the North-East, with the virtual division of the country.
The war commenced with a military budget of Rs. 1.8 billion in 1983 and it has risen to Rs.117 billion by 2007.
In all, from both sides a little less than 100,000 may have been killed by now - leave alone thousands of those who have been disabled. Damage to property is incalculable. Ethnic relations completely collapsed with mutual fear and suspicion between Sinhalese and Tamils escalated.
With Black July, dawned the era of gun culture, disappearances, child soldiers, collapse of rule of law and erosion of democracy. Within the first ten years of UNP rule from 1977, the draconian Constitution was further strengthened with 16 further constitutional amendments - with the two notorious 4th and 6th.
Amendments to the Constitution, whereby the General Elections were postponed and 18 elected MPs from the North and East were removed from the Parliament. The banning of CP, NSSP and JVP was a pretext for the perpetration of all those Machiavellian acts of the JR regime.
With the Black July, fortunes of Prabhakaran dawned; all other Tamil groups and parties being decimated or marginalised. The physical elimination of all leaders of rival Tamil political parties gave way for the emergence of Prabhakaran. Thanks to perpetrators of Black July the most murderous, blood thirsty terrorist group in the world was given birth to.
The process of brutalisation and criminalisation of the present day Sri Lankan society was commenced with the onset of the Black July.
In the history of our country, the entire Sinhalese people were most unjustly portrayed internationally as the most barbarous ethnic group of the modern society while the few perpetrators of those ugliest crimes were allowed to escape unpunished.
It is still afresh in our minds how the Tamil people who were the main victims of Black July voted at the 1982 Presidential Elections for the Sinhala leaders just a few months prior to the Black July.
Despite the boycott campaigns of the TULF and other Tamil groups, between 50 per cent to 80 per cent of the Tamil people went to polls in the 1982 Presidential elections even in the North and East, the lowest being in the Jaffna district with 50 per cent, still relatively high.
It is on record that 60 per cent of the Jaffna people who polled, in fact voted for Sinhala candidates, the highest being obtained by Hector Kobbekaduwa of the SLFP. The figures for the other districts were more eloquent.
Vavuniya - 85 per cent
Trincomalee - 89 per cent
Batticaloa - 60 per cent
Digamadulla - 95 per cent
This was the response of the Tamils and Muslims in the North and East to the Sinhala leaders. Let the people in the South remember this stark fact of history.
All this goodwill evaporated with the Black July. The Tamil people were driven to the clutches of the LTTE, thanks to the perpetrators of Black July, engineered by those in power then.
The international image of Sri Lanka was completely tarnished. The traditional Indo-Sri Lanka relations were strained to the lowest ebb. In my view the emergence of terrorist, chauvinistic JVP in the South too was a by-product of the Black July. How people in the South suffered during the 1987-1990 period are still fresh in their minds and hearts, with the killing spree by JVPers as well as Green Tigers.
In the first round the finest leaders and cadres of the CP, LSSP, NSSP and SLMP were brutally murdered. Of course, they gave their live for the cause of national unity and communal harmony. The killing spree continued and thousands of UNP and SLFP supporters too lost their lives. Can this black chapter of our recent history be forgotten or be allowed to be obliterated?
Much water has flowed under the bridges of Sri Lankan rivers since the Black July. We remain where we were having failed to weed out the root cause of terrorism through the search of a political solution to the national question. Even if we forgive those perpetrators of Black July, we can never forget the event.
( The writer is General Secretary Communist Party of Sri Lanka.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
July 1983 massacre – an Apology to the Tamil people from a Sinhalese
Brian Senewiratne
Brisbane, Australia
Two years ago, in a comprehensive article, ‘Sri Lanka’s Week of Shame - July 1983 massacre – long-term consequences”, I dealt with this blot on Sri Lanka which set the stage for the division of Sri Lanka. This is still on the web
(www.tamilcanadian.com/pageview.php?ID=4260&SID=145)
(www.org/taraki/articles/2006/07-28_Consequences.php?uid=1866)
(www.tamilnation.org/form/brian/060723blackjuly.htm)
This year I will simply offer the Tamil people an Apology for what was done to them in 1983, and even more so, for the increasing violations of their basic human rights in the quarter of a century that has followed.
I did not slit Tamil throats or pull out the intravenous drips and throw out Tamil patients from hospital, But there is a collective guilt, a collective shame,, when members of one’s ethnic group behave like savages. The only ‘crime’ that the victims had committed was to be born Tamil. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed to call myself a Sinhalese. An entire ethnic group was shamed by the behaviour of a handful of Sinhala goons led by their masters in Dictator J.R.Jayawardene’s government, and hoodlums in yellow robes who were desecrating Buddha, one of the greatest teachers of Peace the world has ever known. (My mother was a devout Buddhist and her father a teacher of Buddhism and the author of books on Buddhism).
Some 3,000 Tamil civilians died that week and their homes and property burnt. Many more would have died had it not been for courageous Sinhalese, ordinary decent Sinhalese, who risked life, limb and property to hide Tamils and save them from certain death. Thank God for some decent Sinhalese. I have no doubt that some of them tendered an apology to the devastated and petrified Tamils, but the best apology was the shelter they provided at considerable risk to themselves.
The news
I was already in Australia when the massacre occurred. All I could do was to watch the horror on television. I watched with disbelief and disgust, that a country which calls itself “Buddhist”, had scores of absolute barbarians, both in and outside Government.
I had a call from London. It was from one of the finest Sri Lankans, a Sinhalese, I have ever met – Rt Rev Lakshman Wickremasinghe, the Bishop of Kurunegala, The ailing Bishop was in London but said he was returning home at once to be with his (and my) people, the Tamil people. He did, I wish I had the courage to do the same. I have regretted it ever since.
He visited the numerous refugee camps all over the island to comfort the devastated people, as Christ would probably have done. He visited a refugee camp in Akkarayan, Jaffna, with Dr Luther Jeyasingham and a close friend of mine, the irreplaceable Kandiah Kandasamy of the Movement for Interracial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) After talking with the refugees he was discovered crying in a room. When asked, he replied that from his conversations he had found that his family had been closely linked with the violence. (The Bishop was the uncle of Ranil Wickremasinghe, a Minister in Jayawardene’s government, and a kinsman of J.R.Jayawardene). The Bishop died on 23 October 1983, a broken man. He never recovered from that trauma.
Sri Lanka has produced two saints – Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe (a Sinhalese in the South) and Bishop Bastiampillai Deogupillai (a Tamil in the North).
When Bishop Lakshman called me from London, I said that we, the Sinhalsese had to apologise to the Tamils. He said he would and he did. I apologised to my Tamil wife.
The apology
In his final Pastoral Letter “A cry from the Heart” (15 November 1983) before his untimely death, this is what he wrote,
“We must be ashamed as Sinhalese because what took place was a moral crime. We are ashamed as Sinhalese for the moral crime other Sinhalese committed. We must not only acknowledge the shame. We must also make our apology to those Tamils…”
In a more private way, I tendered my apology. When the full horror of what happened in that week of shame, dawned on me, I sat up one night and wrote a long letter. In the morning I gave it to my wife – “This is an apology from a Sinhalese to a Tamil”. I left for work. When I returned she said, “I have read it. What do you want me to do with it?” I said, “If the apology is accepted, you can throw it away”. She said she would keep it. It was this which was later expanded, and published, with a Foreword from that doyen of Australian Tamils, Sri Lanka’s most brilliant mathematician, Professor C.J. Eliezer who was the Dean of the Faculty of Science in Colombo where my wife and I were students in the 1950s. In the expanded version Sri Lanka. The July 1983 massacre. Unanswered questions, I held President Jayawardene and his murderous Ministers responsible for a carefully planned and executed massacre of Tamils and the total destruction of their economic base, which had nothing to do with the ambush of13 Sinhalese soldiers in the North.
I believed then, and even more so now, that unless the Sinhalese apologise to the Tamils for the outrageous violation of their basic human rights over the past 50 years, there will be no peace, and certainly no peace with friendship, between the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka – divided or undivided.
It has to be a genuine apology – not the bogus apology of my cousin, the former President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, or her political name, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.. At a meeting to mark the 21st Anniversary of the 1983 pogrom, she declared,
“Every citizen in this country should collectively accept the blame and make an apology to the tens of thousands who suffered. I would like to assign to myself that task on behalf of the State of Sri Lanka, the government, and on behalf of all of us, all citizens of Sri Lanka to extend that apology.”
As I said in my earlier publication, that is not an apology, it is political clap-trap. “Every citizen” (that includes the Tamils – unless, of course, she considers Tamils to be non-citizens ) is not to blame for the 1983 pogrom. J.R.Jayawardene and his anti-Tamil Ministers were to blame.
“Every citizen” is not to blame for the wholesale massacre of Tamils that occurred in Jaffna in 1995. She, Chandrika Kumaratunga, President, Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, is to blame. Had she the courage and integrity, she would have apologised to the Tamil people in the North for what she did to them.
The blame for the massacres of Tamils does not rest on “every citizen” but on two elite families – of S.W.R.D Bandaranaike (his wife and daughter), and of J.R.Jayawardene and his cronies. To this can now be added another, more murderous than both of the others, the Rajapakse’s and their supporters among the ranks of the so-called Marxists, and the ‘gentlemen’ in yellow robes.
Tracking down the criminals
Nazi war criminals have been hunted down and punished (irrespective of their age), 50 years after their crimes. There is no reason that those responsible for the Sri Lankan crime in July 1983, should not be hunted down and brought to justice.
Many of those who were responsible, J.R.Jayawardene and his hoodlum Minister Cyril Matthew, and his colleagues, and their thugs, are either dead or not traceable. Others with blood-drenched hands are very much alive and readily accessible. One is Elle Gunawanse thero.
This yellow-robed hoodlum played a crucial role in the events of July 1983.. He was the monk who whipped up the emotions of the crowd that had collected in the kanatte cemetery to bury the soldiers, and later fanned out to set fire to Colombo in general, Tamil homes and businesses in particular.
He then led a mob down Cotta road, Borella, armed with a list of Tamils (obtained from the electoral office) who were to be destroyed. He was later seen at the Cinnamon Gardens police station, with a pistol visibly tucked in his yellow robe, demanding curfew passes. He was the man in the passenger seat of a lorry (I had the photograph), with hoodlums armed with petrol and kerosene, directing them to the Tamil homes to be burnt.
Where is he now? Exactly where he was then – opposite the BMICH on Buller’s road (now Bauddaloka mawatte). That was crown property where he, like many other monks, had illegally squatted, building a small structure. With strong ties with Gamini Dissanayake, Minister for the Mahaveli, this small structure was replaced by an impressive one, with State funds and acknowledged his benefactor, calling it “Mahaveli Maha Seya”. It was from here that the detailed pogrom of the Tamils was meticulously planned and executed.
And now? On 15 January 2003, this virulently racist monk, launched the “Organisation to Protect the Motherland” (OPM), to oppose the talks between Ranil Wickremasinghe, then the Prime Minister, and the LTTE, for a federal settlement. He claimed that the North and East which had been merged under Emergency Regulations in 1987, should be de-merged as the ‘Emergency’ had lapsed with the peace accord signed by Wickremasinghe and the LTTE.
On 1 October 2003, Elle Gunawanse launched the National Patriotic Movement, accusing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe of trying to divide the country.
What stops his arrest and trial? Nothing, other than the will to do so. There he is in all his glory, right in the middle of Colombo, with his heavily blood-soaked yellow robes.
There are others with a case to answer. There is one, in particular, a Minister in Jayawardene’s government, who has much to explain. Let us call him “Minister X”
There were 72 Tamil political detainees in the Welikada prison in Colombo, held there without charge or trial. On 25 July 1983. 35 of them were massacred by Sinhalese prisoners in the jail. President Jayawardene, in a rare act of responsibility, wanted the rest of the Tamil detainees to be immediately sent to Jaffna prison. However, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X’, opposed this saying that the Sinhalese would become further infuriated over such a decision. It was obvious that Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X ‘ did not want the prisoners taken away to safety. Surprise! Surprise! A day late (27 July) there was a second prison massacre, and another 18 slaughtered. Of the original 72 Tamil detainees, only 19 were left. The Sinhalese would now not be ‘infuriated’, since the job was ¾ done.
Who was Minister “X”? Find it out for yourself. There’s a bit of home-work for you.
Action
In January 2008, I was invited to New Zealand to address a special prayer session in the Elim Church, Auckland. Rev Prince Devanathan, a soft-spoken Tamil priest conducting the service said, “We have been praying and praying for Peace for more than 20 years. But the more we pray, the further we get distanced from Peace. That is the reality”. He then came out with the finest words I have heard for years – “Prayer without action is dead”
I’d say the same about an apology. An apology without action is dead. It is this ‘action’ that I have been trying to deliver in the past two and a half decades.
The same holds for protests. To protest, to hold a vigil, to remember the July 1983 massacre is fine. But protests without action is dead.
I urge you to act. To free the Tamil people to live with dignity, and safety in their area of historical habitation – the North and East. I urge you to act, to act, to save the Tamil people from the Genocide, started in July 1983, and now progressing at an alarming rate. Like the Welikada prison massacre, it is ¾ done. Act now. Tomorrow may be too late for the Tamils in the North and East of the ‘Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka’, as it likes to call itself.
As a percentage of the population in their respective areas more Sinhala were killed in Jaffna. Is the riot better or expulsion and ethnic cleansing in Jaffna and nazi eelam better ??
No Sinhala and Muslim students in Jaffna Uni, GG Ponna race hatered speech (1915),Chelva’s 50:50 during 50’s,Tamil ideology over Lanka ideology (Sinhalas and Tamils look so much alike, have mixed and inter-married throughout history; there is no race issue but one of language, discrimination goes both ways),
Madras seapoys killing Lankans and Indians, Colonialism Divide and rule and minority benefits are some root problems.
Tmils in Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Tamil-only eelam(Sinhal not in latter two), Frank Jayasinghe the only world recognized sinhala pricipal in an International school in Tamil Nadu was almost murdered by a mob in who surrounded the school to murder him and the handful of Sinhala students(6) Kodaikanal Tamil Nadu during the eighties is a little known fact.
Tamil expansions begining in small lLanka, then India, Malaysia..
Sinhala (also Muslim and non tiger Tamis) far worse than harresed= cant live in Jaffna, Wanni, Nadu……..!!
Thousands of Sikhs were also killed after Indira Gandi was killed and the govt. took several days to respond, hurricane Katrina saw the most powerful/advance country in the world taking days to respond and prevent death.
Why are these people not into apatheid nazism and baby army ??? !! ! ?
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