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INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA:
Genocide '83
Sri Lanka Government failed to condemn the attacks...
Whilst the henchmen of senior Ministers, and some of the government Members of
Parliament led the attacks, and Colombo was burning on the night of 24 July the National
Security Council was not summoned. Curfew was not declared until the evening of the 25th
of July. The Sri Lankan government made no public declaration condemning the attacks by
the goondas. The government made no public call to the army and the police to do their
duty in the face of that which it later sought to make out was a "left inspired
attack" directed against itself.
''What the troops and the rioters did not get was a clear public order to stop the
mayhem. After two days of violence and the murder of 35 Tamils in a maximum security
jail, the only editorial in the government run newspaper was on 'Saving our Forest Cover'.
It was five days after the precipitating ambush and a day after a second prison massacre
that the police of Sri Lanka heard from their 77 year old President.'' (Economist, 6
August 1983)
"...For four days after the incident broke out - I do not want to
blame anybody - nobody came on television or over the radio. The country was
virtually burning: unprecedented acts of violence had taken place in Colombo
and in the suburbs..." (S.Thondaman, Minister of Rural Industrial
Development, speaking in Sri Lanka Parliament, 4 August 1983 - Hansard page
1354)
It was after four days of planned violence that President Jayawardene eventually
broke his silence on the night of Thursday, 28 July 1983. But, when he spoke, he expressed
no word of regret, no word of sympathy, no word of horror at the humiliation and suffering
of thousands of innocent Tamil people - innocent of any crime other than that of being
Tamils. This was the President of Sri Lanka who later, in December 1983, claimed that
thousands of Tamils had voted for him and that he was entitled to speak for them. This was
the President who sought to speak on behalf a people but to whom, he had nothing to say in
their hour of need. The text of the statement made by President J.R.Jayawardene
on TV, on Thursday, 28 July 1983 read:
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“My Dear Friends,
It is with deep regret and sorrow that I address you
today. When I see the destruction around me, the spate of violence that
has arisen, it is very, very distressing. This violence has been aimed
particularly against the Tamil people, and it has been caused by the
deep ill feeling and the suspicion that has grown between the Sinhala
and the Tamil people for several years. When there is distrust, when
there are grievances, it is easy to lead people to violence, and we feel
that there is an attempt to lead this
violence for the purpose of destroying the political and economic
progress that this Government has been able to ensure for our people.
It was from 1956
that this suspicion between the Sinhala and the Tamil people first
began. In 1976 for the
first time a movement for the separation of our beloved motherland, the
separation of a united Lanka into two nations, was also accepted. The
Sinhalese will never agree to the division of a
country
which has been a united nation for 2,500 years.
At first, this movement for separation was
nonviolent. But since 1976 it became violent.
Violence
increased and innocent people were murdered. Members of the Armed
Services and the Police, politicians who did not agree with the movement
for violence, whether they were Sinhalese or Tamil, were assassinated.
It has grown to such large proportions that not a few but hundreds had
been killed during this movement. Because of this violence by the
terrorists, the Sinhalese people themselves have reacted. I feel
that the movement for separation should have been banned long, long
ago.
I have also been a member of the Governments which are responsible for
not banning it. I thought that in the All Party Conference which I
summoned a few days ago, which we are unable to hold, firstly, because
all the parties did not accept my invitation, and secondly because of
the violence and the curfew around us, I thought that at that conference
I would say that we intend to implement the 1977 manifesto of the United
National Party, which sought to solve some of the political problems
that arose, and once we did that, we would
also ask the consensus of opinion to make the division of the country
illegal.
Unfortunately, we could not hold that conference. But
the Government has now decided that the time has come to accede to the
clamour and the national request of the Sinhala people that we do not
allow the movement for division to grow any more.
The Cabinet, therefore, this morning decided that
we
should bring legislation, firstly, to prevent people from entering
the Legislature if they belonged to a Party that seeks to divide the
nation. Secondly, the legislation will, make Parties that seek to divide
the nation illegal or proscribe them. And once they are proscribed, the
Members cannot sit in the Legislature. We will also see that those who
belong to this Party or those who advocate the separation of the country
lose their civic rights and cannot hold office, cannot practice
professions, cannot join movements or organisations in this country.
We are very sorry that this step should be taken. But
I cannot see, and my Government cannot see, any other way by which we
can appease the natural desire and request of the Sinhala people to
prevent the country being divided, and to see that those who speak
for division are not able to do so legally." (quoted in Lawasia
Report 'Democracy in Peril - Sri Lanka, a Country in Crisis' by Patricia
Hyndman, 7 June 1985) |
Paul Sieghart, Chairman of British Justice commented in his report for the
International Commission of Jurists in March 1984:
"..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. "
(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, March 1984)
It was a 'monumental misjudgement' if it was the concern of the President to
're-establish communal harmony'. But, then, the President had already declared, in July
1983, that the government of Sri Lanka was no longer concerned with the lives of the
Jaffna (Tamil) people. The reasonable inference was that the government of Sri Lanka
expressed no regret, because it felt no regret. It expressed no sympathy because it felt
no sympathy. It expressed no horror because those at the helm of affairs were not
horrified.
Again, not only was it that the President failed to utter one word of sympathy but he
went on to declare:
"..the government has now decided that the time has come to
accede to the clamour and the request, the natural request, of the Sinhala people that we
do not allow the movement for division to grow any more"
To the government of Sri Lanka, the planned attack on the Tamils by organised goondas,
in furtherance of a contingent plan, was a "clamour". It was a
"request", and a "natural" one at that. President Jayawardene's speech
of 28 July, served to justify the violence inflicted on the Tamil people.
''Surprisingly, President Jayawardene in his first public comment made three days
after the riots had begun, did not condemn the violence against the Tamils. In trying to
placate the majority Sinhalese, he seemed by implication to justify the atrocities against
the Tamils.'' (The Review, International Commission of Jurists edited by Niall
Macdermot, December 1983)
...continued...
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