July 23 marked that fateful day in 1983, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ambushed a Sri Lankan Army patrol in the northern city of Jaffna, killing 13 soldiers. Beginning July 24, government-backed mobs systematically targeted the Tamil population across the country.
An estimated 3,000 Tamils were killed. Around 8,000 homes and thousands of business places were destroyed, causing millions of dollars in damage. It took twenty-one years before President Chandrika Kumaratunge formally acknowledged the tragedy and distributed symbolic compensation to a group of victims July 21 2004.
With the riots being largely enabled by the ruling United National Party (UNP), not a single individual has ever been criminally prosecuted or convictedfor the crimes committed during the 1983 Black July pogrom. Despite widespread massacres, sexual violence, and arson targeting the Tamil community, a persistent culture of impunity still pervades.
The blood-letting and mayhem of those weeks after July 23 led to the near three-decade long civil war. During that period, the LTTE attacked and pillaged Sinhalese and Muslim villages. No precise numbers of Sinhala and Muslim civilians killed by the LTTE exist.
However, nearly 72,000 Northern Province Muslims were forcibly expelled from their homes by the LTTE. Hundreds of Muslim civilians also died in massacres and localised raids carried out by the LTTE in the North and East (such as the Palliyagodella (October 15, 1992) and Kattankudy mosque massacres (August 3, 1990). No prosecutions.
The civil war ended with state forces defeating the LTTE.
Even while the civil war was raging, in the south an armed uprising to topple the state led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) broke out in 1987 against the presence of Indian troops in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF).
Exact figures for Sinhala civilians killed by state armed forces and pro-government death squads during that period do not exist. But it is estimated during that insurrection over 40,000 young Sinhalese men and women were killed by state forces. Thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. But none of the killers have been brought to justice, while politicians seem determined to protect the perpetrators from justice. Even the present regime which suffered at the hands of the then government seems disinterested in bringing to justice the leaders who brought such calamity to the country.
In the north and east, the ordinary man/woman recognising their politicians were doing little to solve their problems took a revolutionary decision to support a national party –the National People’s Power (NPP) led by the JVP- rather than regional parochial political parties who kept depending on India to solve Lankan problems.
They realised long before their political leaders, India had neither time nor intention to meddle once more in what was basically Lanka’s internal problems. Basically they were tired of politicians who continually run to India to seek solutions to what were basically Sri Lankan problems.
In the south too, survivors and victims of previous government’s massacres and ordinary folk tired of waiting for solutions to basic problems and for justice turned to the JVP-led NPP for justice and a better economic deal.
Unfortunately, the new regime has not been able to tackle the basic problems of those in the north and east, the Muslim community or the Sinhalese masses who form the voter-base of the NPP.
The cost of living is way beyond wage levels in the country. Despite the rural background of the top leadership of the JVP, farmers are protesting high costs of agricultural inputs for their produce. The Muslim community who also voted for the NPP rather than religious themed political parties feel let down.
On the international scene where even countries of the West are banning Israeli goods produced in occupied territories, the JVP-NPP government boasts of sending more Lankan workers to Israel so-as-to free up Israeli workers to join the Israeli armed forces committing genocide in Palestine and Lebanon.
President Dissanayake and his cabinet colleagues need to speedily find solutions to these outstanding problems. They received a huge vote of public confidence. If they fail to live up to expectations they could end up like past president Rajapaksa in the dust bin of history.
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