If media reports are to be believed, 43 years after the 1983 government-sponsored pogrom against the Tamil community in the country, a number of NPP MPs have called for the appointment of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) ‘to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 1983 Black July riots and their impact’.
Let’s hope the government MPs who sponsored the motion are not holding their breath until the Tamil community thanks them for the belated inquiry. First off, let’s be clear. What happened in July 1983 was not a riot.
Mobs of the then government supporters who happened to be Sinhalese, armed with address lists of members of the Tamil community, went from house to house killing and assaulting Tamil citizens. They burned their homes, looted their goods and destroyed their businesses.
The police and armed forces of the country (whom MP Arunachalam wants president Dissanayake to refer to as heroes) stood by idly; more often than not, they egged the mobs on. The then President of the country did nothing to stop the unfolding violence on a section of his countrymen. When he did speak, he did not condemn the brutal anti-Tamil violence or offer sympathy to the victims.
He described the attacks on the Tamil community as a reaction of the Sinhalese people who had been “provoked”, ann attempt to justify the pogrom by presenting the actions of organised mobs as a spontaneous, collective outburst of majority frustration.
Most of the immediate victims of that pogrom are probably dead or are at death’s door today. The original leaders of the organisations which took up arms to defend the victim Tamil community are also dead. Around a fourth of the then Tamil population fled the country and are now citizens of those country’s which offered them succour.
The whole world, including us Sri Lankans, whether we be Sinhala, Muslim, Burgher or Tamil, know who organised and implemented the pogrom of July 1983. If by now we still have not learned the impact of that pogrom on our country — a permanent division along ethnic lines — no matter how many enquires we hold, we are destined to be ignoramuses forever. We never seem to learn.
The question that arises is, why it took two years after the NPP government was elected into power, to ‘suddenly’ call for an investigation into the causes behind the ‘so-called 1983 riots’ and its impact.
Are the MPs really concerned at the plight of the long-suffering of the Tamil people? The devastating effect it had on the economy of the country, or a fear that it has created permanent ethnic divisions among our countrymen? Or could it be a ploy to take the minds of our people away from their daily struggle to keep body and soul together.
Today the average wage varies between Rs. 35,000/- to Rs. 50,000l/- per month. Yet the cost of having two nutritious meals per day for a family of four (father, mother and two children) costs at least around 100,000/- per month, without taking into consideration other costs like clothes, travel or medical expenses.
Not surprisingly over 20% of our schoolchildren suffer from malnutrition, while according to the WHO, over 25% of the population lives below the poverty line. Despite this, the government keeps increasing prices of essentials. Today, the price of wheat flour has been increased by a whopping Rs. 13/- per kg and the PUCSL is speaking of further increasing the cost of electricity.
With most of the Rajapaksa family now facing charges of bribery and corruption, it seems a new distraction is needed to take the attention of the people away from the intolerable burdens government continues heaping on them. Whose twisted mind came up with the idea of digging up the horrors of 1983 to save the government its blushes for having failed to control the cost of living?
All of the people cannot be deceived all of the time. We witnessed how the alleged Chemmani mass-gravesite suddenly turned into a mere past gravesite. At the end of the PSC investigation, it may turn out late president Jayawardene was right. ‘Black July’ 1983 may soon be whitewashed.
Source:Dailymirror.lk