After the death of veteran Tamil political leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan recently, a senior leftist politician friend from Tami Nadu contacted me and asked me what was the role the late leader played in Sri Lankan Tamil politics.
I began by recounting Sampanthan’s contributions to the negotiations that led the signing of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord after 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogrom. He immediately interrupted and asked me what happened in 1983 July. I was very much disappointed that there was a leftist stalwart in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu who did not know that the brutal ethnic violence against Tamils all over the country led to the civil war that lasted almost three decades.
He is not too young to know what happened in Sri Lanka at that time.I wondered if he had not even considered why Sri Lankan Tamil refugees had been staying in Tamil Nadu camps for more than four decades.
Sampanthan’s demise and this Tamil Nadu politician’s question three weeks ahead of the 41st anniversary of Black July, though coincidental, have provided me with an opportunity to write about the ethnic violence that marked a watershed in ethnic relations in Sri Lanka.
Incidentally, it was the illustrious editor and political analyst of international fame, late Mervyn de Silva, who coined the term ‘ Black July’ in his now defunct ‘ Lanka Guardian’. As mentioned earlier, anti- Tamil riots that spread all over the island 41years ago this week had become a watershed in the history of our country’s politics and in the relations between the Sinhalese majority community and the largest minority community, the Tamils.
It was not the enormity of the violence that astonished everybody, but the fact that it had really happened. The number of those who were killed in the violence that spread over more than a week was estimated to be in the region of 3,000. There was no proper estimation of damage to property, but thousands of Tamils lost their houses and property. Most Tamils lost hope that they could ever peacefully live among the Sinhalese as equals.
Thousands upon thousands of Tamils left the shores of Sri Lanka as refugees to India, and thousands pf others fled to Western Europe, North America and Australia and took the citizenship of these lands. As a result of the exodus, the Sri Lankan Tamils seem to have become new Jews wondering all over the world eventually becoming a politically influential Diaspora. It is not an exaggeration to call them ‘modern Jews’.
The violence unleashed against the Tamils by President J.R.Jeyawardene led United National Party(UNP) government had changed the trajectory of Sri Lankan politics. A guerrilla attack launched by Tamil Tigers in Jaffna on the night of July 22 killed 13 army men on a patrol. This incident served as a convenient ruse for the racist political forces within the government to set off violence which was pre-planned with the overt help of the state machinery.
The government did not take immediate action to control the mob violence against the Tamils. It took one week for President Jeyawardene to appear on state television and make an appeal to stop the violence. He did not utter word to console the Tamils who were badly affected by the communal carnage and lost lives and property as never before. Instead he declared unabashedly that the violence was a natural reaction of the Sinhala people towards the demand for separation by the Tamil political leadership.
Apart from the loss of lives and destruction of property, the agony and mental trauma experienced by the Tamils as a result of the pogrom was immeasurable and insurmountable. Although the loss of lives and property of the Tamils during the civil war that lasted almost three decades was far greater than the suffering in Black July the latter proved to be high symbolic in the history of Tamils in Sri Lanka. It propelled the Tamil militancy and armed struggle and plunged the country into a destructive ethnic war.
Not only the Jeyawardene government but all other governments that came to power after Black July, while parroting promises about finding a political settlement to the national problem concentrated on pursuing a military solution. Every President spoke about finding a political solution only to hoodwink the international community.
Instead of helping to find a viable political solution India and other powerful nations had, by their approach and actions, eventually ensured the intensification of the pursuit of a military solution. In the end we saw that dramatic changes in the geopolitical arena enabling the government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to defeat the Tamil Tigers in the Wanni and end the war in May 2009 without any regard for civilian casualties and sufferings.
Now in the backdrop of the elapse of 41 years since Black July and more than 15 years after the end of the war, it is disturbing and disheartening to note a bizarre situation regarding attempts to find a political solution to the national problem.
Sri Lankan politics is changing in a worrisome direction ahead of the Presidential election. It is very difficult to take an objective view regarding the national problem.
It must be recounted to the benefit of the younger generation that in the aftermath of Black July, our big neighbour India was compelled to interfere in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict and offer its services to mediate between the two warring factions. This was an important milestone in Indo-Sri Lanka relations and eventually paved the way for the signing of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord in Colombo between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Jeyawardene.
Immediately after the Accord, in order to introduce the Provincial Councils, the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution was passed in Parliament amid intense opposition led by former Prime Minister Srimao Bandaranaike.These developments were the catalyst for the second JVP uprising in the latter part of the 1980s.
The period saw one of the eventual episodes in the recent history of Sri Lanka, an attempt on Rajiv Gandhi’s life by a naval rating during the guard of honour in front of President’s House on the day following the signing of the accord, the attempt to assassinate Jeyawardene on August 18,1987 during a meeting of the UNP Parliamentary group and the large scale but senseless destruction of property in the South following the signing of the accord, were testimonies to the deep feeling that had been stirred up among sections of the Sinhalese.
Many politicians on both sides of the ethnic divide who supported the accord were cold bloodedly assassinated by both the Tamil and Sinhalese militants.
But politically speaking, the accord had brought many desirable changes. President Jeyawardene reversed his stand on a number of issues on which he had held strong views. The man, who in 1944 in the second state Council, voted against S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s resolution calling for the replacement of English as the official language with both Sinhala and Tamil, instead demanded that only Sinhala should be the national language. He organised a March to Kandy against the 1957 Bandaranaike – Chelvanayagam Pact and helped to tear it up the signed agreement granting Tamil and English an equal place with Sinhala as official languages.
The man who swore that a merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces could only take place over his dead body, now signed an agreement permitting the merger, subject to a referendum in the Easter province.
A former Tamil United Liberation Front ( TULF) Parliamentarian and renowned constitutional expert, late Neelan Thiruchelvam in a newspaper article almost three decades ago quoted former Indian foreign secretary and the first envoy to handle the Sri Lankan ethnic issue Gopalaswamy Parthasarathy ( famously known as GP ) as saying that it was with great difficulty that he convinced President Jeyawardene on the desirability of devolution of power to the provinces.
Despite the fact the 13th Amendment and the Provincial Council system have been in the existence for more than three decades the Tamil problem has not come to an end. While the Tamils and the main political parties that represented them have been saying that neither the 13th Amendment nor Provincial Councils could be considered a durable solution to their problem, the Sinhala polity has been tolerating the Provincial Councils saying that they had been set up under duress.
The Tamils and Indians have been unable to persuade or pressurize Sri Lankan governments to make improvements to the powers of the Provincial Councils or at least implement the 13th Amendment fully so far.
Following the tragic developments after the Peace Accord India is no longer interested in the Sri Lankan ethnic imbroglio despite constant requests from the Tamil parties of the North and East. One cannot expect any change in the attitude of India in the foreseeable future in the context of current geopolitical realities except intermittent requests to implement the 13th Amendment and hold elections to the Provincial Councils.
It is unfortunate that the main Sri Lankan political forces are still debating the very fundamental issues as if the ethnic problem had emerged only recently.
As such our national problem is certainly going to fester without any meaningful political solution that would address the legitimate political aspirations and grievances of the minority communities.
The three would- be main candidates in the Presidential election to be held in two months, President Ranil Wickramasinghe, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and National People’s Power leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake have promised to implement the 13th amendment. But they frequently express confused positions on the powers of the provincial administration . They do not speak in a manner that would clear the doubts of the Tamil people on the issue.
On the other hand, the Tamil parties are divided and unable to act with political prudence and maturity to present a unified stand. To the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of any other country in the world experiencing such confusion in the implementation of a constitutional provision which has been the part or the constitution for more than three decades, as seen in Sri Lanka.
Taking all this into consideration, it is a shame that our political class is yet to learn from the tragedies of the past and find a solution to the national problem. This is a bigger shame than Black July.
By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
