News
Lanka massacres that triggered civil war haunt 40 years later
by Amal JAYASINGHE
Forty years ago, mobs in Sri Lanka burned 13 people alive, part of a week-long pogrom that turbocharged simmering ethnic unrest into all-out civil war.Known in Sri Lanka as “Black July”, the brutal violence triggered a 26-year conflict that killed about 100,000 people and set development back by decades, ending only after the Tamil rebels fighting for autonomy were massacred in 2009.
The 1983 anti-Tamil mob attacks escalated on July 29, when Mohan Panneer Selvam was just eight years old.A rampaging gang torched his home in the tea-growing central town of Hawa Eliya, burning 13 people inside, including his parents, relatives and their staff.
“My grandmother started to escape, they shot her and threw her body into the house,” Panneer Selvam said, breaking down while recalling the events narrated to him by his older sister.
He and his younger brother were away at boarding school when the riots broke out, returning as orphans to the ruins of their burned home two months later.His sister — then a child of 10 — was the sole survivor only because their mother “threw her out of the kitchen window,” he said. She was wounded and found “two or three days later” by police and sent to a camp for Tamils made homeless by the violence.
“My sister saw the burnt bodies — they put the bodies in a municipal tractor (trailer),” he told AFP. “They dumped them somewhere.”
Ethnic tensions between the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the largely Hindu and Christian Tamil minority had long simmered, and worsened after ex-colonial ruler Britain quit in 1948.The conflict erupted in July 1983, when a landmine ambush laid by Tamil rebels killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers, in the Tamil heartland of Jaffna.The government flew the bodies to Colombo for a mass burial, but relatives demanded individual funerals and rioted.
The backlash degenerated into a week of violence targeting Tamils, with the worst of the violence on July 29, dubbed “Black Friday”, when Panneer Selvam’s family was killed.According to the government, about 400 to 600 people died over the course of the massacres — mostly Tamils. But minority groups say the true toll could be in the thousands.
“The events that happened… changed the course of history,” said Tamil legislator M. A. Sumanthiran.
“We don’t regard what happened in 1983 as a riot, because it was planned violence unleashed on the Tamil people in this country. It was a pogrom.”
Some claim the army was actively involved or provided tacit support to the attacks in revenge for the loss of their 13 comrades, and several then-government officials were seen leading mobs. No one has been prosecuted.But some Sinhalese did protect Tamil neighbours.Human Rights lawyer Nimalka Fernando, who is Sinhalese, sheltered Tamil and Muslim neighbours.
“Over 40 years, it has been a journey to grapple with waves of internally displaced people, waves of refugees in my own country,” she said.
Sumanthiran said autonomy was the “political standard of the Tamil people”, noting they had always voted for a federal system — and had even demanded a separate state during elections in 1977.
“To quell that, to subdue that, violence was practised,” he said. “So ‘83 was the height of that kind of strategy by the government”
Sumanthiran says about 1.3 million Tamils fled the country after the riots, many north to neighbouring India — motivating their increasing interest in the conflict.New Delhi pressed Colombo to seek peace by granting autonomy to the Tamils, and the Sinhalese leaders’ policy “boomeranged” back in their faces, he added.
“While everything was on fire, the Indian government intervened,” Sumanthiran said.Of the estimated 100,000 killed in the war, the dead are split roughly equally between the security forces, Tamil fighters and Tamil civilians, with Sinhalese and Muslims also among the dead.
The physical scars of the war fade, and only a few of the battle-scarred buildings remain. But the legacy of events 40 years ago lives on.Today, Sumanthiran said many Tamils still dream of political autonomy.
“Successive governments after the war ended have been successful in sort of delaying it — promising and not doing,” he said. “But I don’t think they can do that for too long”.
Marking the completion of two years of the ‘Vision’ Programme, students from Pinnawala Central College and Matale Siri Seevali College were given an opportunity on Thursday (24) to visit the Presidential Secretariat.
The ‘Vision’ Programme was launched for schoolchildren jointly by the Presidential Secretariat, the Ministry of Education and the Department of Communication of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.
Following a visit to the former Parliament building at the Presidential Secretariat, the students were also briefed on the history of Parliament.
The role of the President’s Fund and its importance to schoolchildren were explained by Senior Additional Secretary to the President Roshan Gamage.
The ‘Vision’ commemorative book, featuring the two-year journey of the ‘Vision’ Programme and its special activities, was also presented to the participating schools.
As part of the programme, valuable plants were also presented to the schools as a symbolic gesture underscoring the importance of environmental conservation.
Director General of Public Relations Dharmasiri Gamage, the Director and Assistant Director of the Tri-Services Security Coordination Unit, the principals and teaching staff of Pinnawala Central College and Matale Siri Seevali College, and students were among those present on the occasion.
President’s Media Division (PMD)
Opposition and SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa yesterday vowed that an SJB government would repeal the 22nd Amendment (22A) to the Constitution.Premadasa made the pledge while addressing thousands of SJB supporters who gathered near Parliament to protest against 22A.
Addressing the rally at Polduwa Junction, Battaramulla, Premadasa said the proposed constitutional amendment would undermine democracy and judicial independence and enable the concentration of political power in the Executive.
“Even if they pass it, under an SJB government we will scrap it,” Premadasa told the gathering, claiming that 22A was aimed at paving the way for a one-party state and placing the State under the control of a single political party.
Braving the rain, Premadasa said they had gathered there peacefully and had no intention of resorting to violence.
“We have gathered here to protect democracy,” he said, challenging the government to hold Provincial Council elections if it was confident of facing the people.
Premadasa said the SJB was prepared to work with any democratic and clean political force committed to the country’s progress and public welfare, amid ongoing discussions on cooperation among Opposition parties, including the United National Party.
Premadasa also accused groups aligned with the government of attempting to discourage people from attending the protest through statements and other measures.
SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara said the protest had been organised against the proposed amendment, which the party had opposed on the grounds that it could pave the way for authoritarianism.
The demonstration began around 9 a.m. at Polduwa Junction and coincided with Parliament taking up the proposed 22nd Amendment for debate. Proceedings on the Bill are scheduled to continue today (25).
The Supreme Court has determined that the proposed amendment does not require approval at a referendum and could be passed with a special majority in Parliament.
Meanwhile, traffic congestion was reported on roads surrounding Parliament and Polduwa Junction following the demonstration.
Security was also tightened in and around the Parliamentary complex, with a heavy police presence observed at Polduwa Junction and near the main entrance to Parliament.
Two retired female Navy petty officers were ordered to be remanded until October 5 over their alleged involvement in the abduction and disappearance of two women in Trincomalee during the war.
Trincomalee Chief Magistrate M.S.M. Samsudeen yesterday ordered that the two suspects be remanded and directed that they be produced for an identification parade on October 5.
The suspects, residents of Chilaw and Haputale, were arrested after appearing before the CID in connection with another court case. They were subsequently produced before the Trincomalee Magistrate’s Court.
The court was informed that the investigation concerned the alleged abduction of Sasikumar Thenmoli and Mary Delsia, residents of Paalaiyootru, Trincomalee, on or around May 13, 2008.
The CID told court that information uncovered during its investigations indicated that the two women had allegedly been detained at an underground location known as the “Gun Site” at the Trincomalee Naval Base while the two suspects were serving in the Navy. The women were subsequently reported missing.
Further investigations into the alleged abduction and disappearance of the two women are continuing.
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