by Paneetha Ameresekere
Monday, July 25, 1983, is an unforgettable day in my life. The day of the race riots, and the day I thought that the whole country had gone mad, when the law of the jungle held sway in our land.
Rampaging and frenzied mobs armed with poles and tins of gasoline burning and looting thousands of Tamil establishments and homes throughout the country, the country in a near state of anarchy and the Tamils being forced to seek refuge among their Sinhala neighbours and others, was a common sight that day.
While all this was going on, the State looked on impotent, virtually impervious to the trail of destruction and human misery left behind by these pogroms, while the defence establishment seemed to be indifferent, with looters going on a rampage in front of their own eyes.
The then head of state and the commander-in-chief of the defence establishment J.R. Jayewardene was ensconced in his private residence at ‘Braemar,’ Ward Place, while only a few hundred yards away, the environs were on fire.
The (then) government was ineffectual, unable to govern and re-enforce the rule of law, while the mobs held sway for several days, culminating in the massacre and butchering of innocent Tamils in Colombo and the suburbs, and elsewhere in the country, on Black Friday-July 29, 1983.
A friend of mine, whose father held a key position in Jayewardene’s office said that the soldiers were not carrying out orders issued by their superiors during those dark days.
It was a situation akin to the pogroms the Jews underwent in the 1890s in Russia and in Hitler’s Germany and Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, the only difference being that in Sri Lanka it was not state sponsored, but a situation where the state was not in control and therefore unfit to govern and held accountable for acts of omission and commission.
I was in the heart of Colombo working in a bank when the riots broke out that fateful morning. The first signs that indicated that trouble was brewing was when I saw huge puffs of black smoke belching up into the air and visible from the place where I was seated, indicating that some establishment closeby was on fire. Then stories started spreading fast that Colombo was being set on fire by rampaging mobs.
The bank put up its shutters around 11 am. When I and a bank officer living in the suburbs south of Colombo began the long walk home, as there were no buses to take us.
The scenes we saw during that walk made us both dizzy and sick. It was mob rule and not ‘Dharmishta’ (righteous) rule. Tamil commercial establishments were broken into, sacked and then burnt by frenzied mobs. And the soldiers who were present in large numbers in the city on that day, taking no steps to restore law and order. I cannot remember seeing any policemen on duty on that day of shame.
Among the several acts of inhumanity that took place during those days, there were also individual acts of heroism performed by Sinhalese in defence of their neighbours and friends.
I know personally of how a Sinhalese friend of mine went to see about the well-being of a mutual Tamil friend of ours and his family living in Frankfurt Place, Bambalapitiya on that day.
He found his friend, along with his widowed mother and two sisters huddled in a corner of the house and the berserk mob streaming down the road, wreaking havoc and destruction.
Our Sinhala friend posted himself in front of the gate of the house and met the mob. “Mahattaya, me gedera Demeladha,” they asked him, which means ‘Sir, is this a Tamil house?’ ‘This is a Sinhalese house’, my friend replied and the mob left, leaving that house intact, while several of the other Tamil houses that way were looted and destroyed.
If my memory serves me correct, that house and another Tamil house were the only two houses located down Frankfurt Place which escaped destruction on that ignominious day. My Tamil friend and his family soon after left for England, and recently sold their property.
What were the causes that led to Black July week? Was it the government’s ineptitude in handling the Tamil problem, or was it the irresponsible statements made by some Tamil politicians both here and abroad?
Or was it the wanton destruction of public property by Tamil terrorists, the killing of Tamil politicians and civilians opposed to Eelam, the massacre of service personnel and police serving in the North, culminating in the ambush and massacre of 13 soldiers at Tinnavely, Jaffna on July 23 night, and the consequent clumsy and blunderbuss way the government handled the situation vis-a-vis the soldiers’ bereaved relatives?
Or was it the total lack of intelligence in the defence establishment, which, as a result the authorities were unable to take any pro-active measures to prevent such a situation?
These are the questions that demand an answer, and those accountable made answerable, as such a course of action might hopefully prevent a repetition of such incidents.
Courtesy: Daily News, Friday 23, July 1999