Dilrook Kannangara

Selective amnesia is a popular propaganda and political trick. Those who howl about Black July 1983 pretend not to know about the happenings immediately before that. It certainly did not happen in a vacuum. There were far worse events before that. Putting these into context is important to understand what really happened.

In August 1977 within just 3 weeks of the July 1977 election when TULF won the second highest number of seats in parliament, Tamil rioters attacked Sinhala people in Jaffna district, gave them 48 hours to leave and not to take anything other than what they had on their bodies. None of the rioters was a member of any terrorist group at that time. According to the 1971 census there were more than 20,000 Sinhalas living in Jaffna. By 1977 their numbers would have naturally grown. All of them were evicted from Jaffna in the first recorded incident of ethnic cleansing to take place in Sri Lanka. What is most shocking is, none of them received compensation, restitution and Tamils continue to occupy their lands to this date. If true reconciliation were to take place, Tamils should give up these lands and hand them back to Sinhalas. It will never happen.

The next year, Tamil individuals planted a bomb inside a London-bound AirCeylon passenger plane in Ratmalana. The plane was destroyed. Luckily for its passengers, both locals and foreigners, the plane was delayed for extra cleaning which saved lives and avoided the mid-air spectacular blast that was intended by those who planted the bomb. Once again none of the perpetrators was a member of any Tamil terrorist group. Bombing an international vessel including a passenger plane is an act of war and an act of terrorism. The war had started by 1978 if not earlier. Given the threat this might have posed to British nationals, Britain supported Sri Lanka’s move to counter terrorism and the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1979 was passed which was a copy of the same law in Britain.

According to the Sansoni Commission Report compiled by Justice Sansoni, acts of war by Tamil individuals including arson, violence, bank robberies, assassinations, weapons smuggling, etc. had commenced since 1972 when Sri Lanka became a fully independent republic. This was shrewd and deliberate timing as any act of war prior to that would have earned the wrath of Britain. The elements waited until Sri Lanka severed its legal, military and symbolic ties with Britain to launch their terrorist campaign. The leader of the LTTE was then a teenager and was injured in 1972 when he experimented with an improvised explosive device. He was treated at the Jaffna teaching hospital. Jaffna mayor Alfred Duraiappah was gunned down by Tamils in 1975. These are clearly acts of terrorism.

The incident at the Jaffna public library in 1981 and Black July 1983 happened much later. Focusing only on those events and not mentioning 1977 Black August and its continuing ethnic cleansing and the terrorist act of bombing a passenger plane in 1978 points to racism. Every incident must be given equal weight when discussing past matters. Otherwise, it’s not worth discussing. UN Human Rights Commission discussed the events of July 1983 but decided it deserved no further action from the Commission or from Sri Lanka. Lies and exaggerations failed to convince anyone other than those who wanted to believe in lies. The same can be said about war crimes allegations over 2009 occurrences. Over 17 years have passed and none of the 192-strong membership of the UN considered those allegations deserved a war crimes investigation. Otherwise, they would have moved a resolution at the UN. They did so completely voluntarily. Sri Lanka never influenced, bribed or even effectively lobbied any country to do so. It is yet another bad luck fairy tale without a grain of evidence that no nation believes. Human rights issues on the other hand were addressed by Sri Lanka and is a wholly different matter.