2009   2008   2007   2006   2005   2004   2003

Looking back two decades in perspective - Black July 1983

Loss of Tamil lives and property, ignominy notwithstanding, was mind-boggling in the 1958 pogrom and a whole host of like communal vendetta against Tamils at organized level till 1983. But July 1983 has a special significance because of numbers involved and the resultant exodus of Tamils and other minorities like Burghers migrating to safer locations in the globe. In fact July 1983, unlike any other communal holocaust hitherto, brought to international attention the injustice that the Tamil people were facing and the discriminatory governance pattern with which the Tamils had to 'live' with.

Kumar Rupesinghe and Berth Verstappen in their 'Ethic Conflict and Human Rights in Sri Lanka' have this to say in their Introduction:

'….The events of July 1983 were a shattering experience. All though there had been 'riots' and so called 'communal violence' earlier in the history of the country, the scale and intensity of violence in July 1983 and the damage to relations between two peoples have been almost irreparable. The Barbaric killing of 53 prisoners in Welikade Prison, Colombo, shocked all civilized people, violating all sense of decency and known norms of civilized society.'

Flashing back our memory to the communal pogrom of 1958, it is appropriate to recall the lines of Tarzie Vitttachi, who in his book 'Emergency '58 -The story of the Ceylon race riots', says in its preface:

'…This book, most of which was written during those long, tense curfew nights of May, and June 1958, is a record of the events, passions and under-currents which led to the recent communal crisis, and of the more remarkable instances of man's inhumanity to man in those hate-filled days.

…… When a government, however popular, begins to pander to racial or religious emotionalism merely because it is the loudest of the raucous demands made on it, and then meddles in the administration and enforcement of law and order for the benefit of its favourites or to win the plaudits of crowd, however hysterical it may be, catastrophe is certain.

At the risk of losing the monumental support of the anti-Muslim Congress sympathizers, Mahaatma Gandi once said:

No cabinet worthy of being representative of a large mass of man-kind can afford to take any step merely because it is likely to win the hasty applause of an unthinking public. In the midst of insanity, should not our best representatives retain sanity and bravely prevent a wreck of the ship of state under their care?

Can any one doubt that if this glorious principle of statesmanship had been applied in Ceylon the bloodbath of 1958 could have been avoided?

… Emergency '58 ends with the question: 'have we come to the parting of the ways?' …Many thoughtful people believe that we have. Others, more hopeful, feel that the bloodbath we have emerged from has purified the national spirit and given people a costly lesson in humility.

-Emergency' 58, Tarzie Vittachi - 1958

In remembering July 1983 therefore, it is irresistible for the Tamil psyche to overlook the ones before and after. Even after the island being relegated to the status of a rogue or pariah state in 1983, unfortunately though the Tamils faced many a holocaust and a full scale war prosecuted by those in governance. If setting fire to the library in Jaffna and the massacre of Tamil youths during the Tamil Research Conference can be classified as part of the genocidal pogroms, the arrest of several hundreds of Tamil youths in 1996 who ended up in mass graves in Chemmani, Jaffna comes on top of all injustices that the Tamil people faced. Compensation and reconciliation, subjects that are much talked about these days in the context of July 1983 should encompass all acts of violence perpetrated on the Tamils from 1958, else it is only political expediency.

Whether as Tarzi Vittachi said, we feel that the blood bath we have emerged from has purified the national spirit and given people a costly lesson in humility is a matter yet to be seen in the context of the repeated bloodbaths that this island had since then.

Liberation Tigers as a responsible freedom fighting organization wishes to associate itself with the grief of the Tamil people all over the world for the loss and ignominy that they faced and in the same breath reaffirm their commitment with dedication to take forward the freedom struggle and achieve the national aspirations of the Tamil people.

25 July 2004

Print this

Email this