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Black July 1983: the Charge is Genocide
Government failed to condemn and President
Jayawardene expressed no sympathy when he belatedly addressed
the nation on 26 July 1983...
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 full 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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