A senior Tamil leader from the North has accused the political leaders from the south of not even tendering an apology for the deadly Black July pogrom of 1983, which was perpetuated with government support. The Sinhala rioters who went berserk killed hundreds of Tamil people in the capital Colombo and other parts of the country.
53 political prisoners at the notorious Welikada jail were massacred. The Black July riots of 1983 were a watershed moment that polarized the already divided country on ethnic lines.
“Even as we are facing a Presidential election, candidates who keep on coming to the north and east to campaign neither express regret nor offer an apology to the Tamil people even after four decades. None have provided any compensation or other assistance to those affected,” said Suresh Premachandran, former Jaffna District MP and leader of the EPRLF at a meeting in Jaffna recently.
The former spokesperson of the erstwhile Tamil National Alliance was speaking at an event in Jaffna recently to remember Tamils who were massacred at the Welikada Jail during the Black July riots in 1983 and in the Bindunuwewa rehabilitation camp and other detention facilities in Sri Lanka.
Families of those killed, religious leaders, politicians, and civil society activists participated in the remembrance event held at the Thanthai Chelva Memorial Hall.
Suresh Premachandran accused successive governments of branding all those Tamils who were killed as ‘terrorists’. Adding further the leader of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) said there is a need to pass on the struggle for the rights of the Tamil people to the future generations.
“The governments of this country looked upon all the Tamils who have been killed as terrorists and that’s the reason we lost thousands of people in the struggle. Apart from that thousands more were killed by the Army and the Navy. So, for people like me who escaped death, remembering those who have been killed is needed to take forward the struggle of the people who fought for their rights for the coming generations”.
Presidential candidate Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Minister for Justice, Prisons Affairs, and Constitutional Reforms offered a brief apology from the Tamil people for the Black July riots that happened 41 years back. Following his statement on the 23rd of July in Colombo, he later announced his candidature on July 29, 2024.
The remembrance event in Jaffna was attended by the leader of the Tamil National Green Movement and former minister of the Northern Province Ponnuthurai Ayngaranesan, Dean of Arts faculty Sivasubramaniam Raguram, leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi Maavai Senathiraja, families of those killed during the riots, released political prisoners, and University students participated in the remembrance event.
Political parties including TELO, EPRLF, PLOTE, the Crusaders for Democracy Party, and the Tamil National Party that formed the Democratic Tamil National Alliance also participated in the event to remember those killed in the Black July riots.
At a similar event jointly organized by the Jaffna Traders Association and Civil Service Organizations to recall the killing of Tamil people in the Black July riots saw the participation of religious and political leaders and social activists.
25-27 July 1983
During the 1983 Black July massacres 53 Tamil political prisoners under remand in the Welikada jail, including the leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization were hacked to death in their cells by the Sinhala prisoners detained there with the complete support of the security guards and prison officials.
When the bodies of the 35 killed on the 25th of July 1983 including TELO leader Kuttimani (Selvarajah Yogachandran) were heaped inhumanly in front of the Buddha statue in the forecourt of the jail, even those faintly breathing were identified and beaten to death.
Then again on the 27th of July, when the Sinhala prisoners laid siege to the cells where the Tamil political prisoners were detained on the first floor and attacked them, 18 people including the leader of the Gandhian movement Dr Somasundaram Rajasundaram were killed. Among those who miraculously survived were the present minister for fisheries Douglas Devananda, Panagoda Maheswaran (Tambipillai Maheswaran), Anthony Pillai Alagiri of the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students, and S. David of the Gandhian movement.
Recalling the traumatic experiences in the Welikada prison S. David told news website JDSLanka the riots and massacre and the attack on Anthony Pillai Alagiri inside the prison was led by Sepala Ekanayake who was imprisoned there for hijacking an Alitalia flight. Although the Tamil United Liberation Front tried to nominate TELO leader Kuttimani to the Parliament, the then speaker Bakeer Markar refused to swear him in since he was serving a life sentence.
25 October Bindunuwewa
Almost a quarter of a century ago more than 40 Tamil people held in the Bandarawela Bindunuwewa ‘rehabilitation camp’ were murdered under the pretext of suspicious relations with the now militarily defeated LTTE. They were released after the war and sent for what the government called the ‘rehabilitation and reintegration’ process. In total 41 persons were kept in the Bindunuwewa. In the wee hours of 25th of October 2000, twenty seven among them were hacked and stabbed to death. The remaining 14 Tamils were seriously injured and battled for their lives without proper medical care which was denied to them just for being Tamils. Sri Lankan police and the local Sinhala villagers were accused of the attack and massacre.
Among the 41 persons arrested for the Bindunuwewa massacre, 19 were police officials including the Officers in Charge of the Bandarawela and Diyatalawa police stations and the rest were local villagers.
An appellate court on May 17 released the four persons including two police officers who were found guilty and sentenced to death by a local court on the 1st of July 2003.
However, JDS says the case against the Upcountry plantation workers who protested against the gruesome massacre of 27 prisoners and 14 other inmates injured inside the Bindunuwewa camp is yet to conclude as the state has failed to produce witnesses in court.
