Black July

Black July is the commonly used name for the pogroms starting in Sri Lanka on July 23 1983. It is estimated that at least 1,000cite web
title=President Kumaratunga's speech on the 21st Anniversary of 'Black July'
url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/document/papers/BlackJuly2004.htm |date=2004-07-23 | publisher=South Asia Terrorism Portal ] Tamil people were killed, tens of thousands of houses were destroyed, and a wave of Sri Lankan Tamils left for other countries. There are other estimates that put the death toll at 3,000 dead. The riots occurred following a deadly ambush by a Tamil militant organization known as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam which killed 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers.

Black July is generally seen as the start of full-scale armed conflict between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese-dominated government of Sri Lanka.cite web | first=Brian | last=Senewiratne |url=http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/07-28_Consequences.php?uid=1866 | title=Sri Lanka's Week of Shame: The July 1983 massacre of Tamils – Long-term consequences | date=2006-07-28 | accessdate = 2006-08-01 | publication =Ilankai Tamil Sangam: Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA] cite book | last=Wilson | first=A. Jeyaratnam | title=The Break up of Sri Lanka: the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict | publisher=University of Hawaii Press
year=1989 | id=ISBN 0-8248-1211-5 ] cite book | last=Tambiah | first=Stanley | authorlink=Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah| title=Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=1984 | id=ISBN 0-226-78952-7 ] It has become a day of remembrance for the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora around the world.

Background

During the colonial period many Sri Lankan Tamils, particularly those from the Jaffna peninsula, took advantage of educational facilities established by missionaries and soon dominated the civil service and other professions. When Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, a majority of government jobs were held by Tamils, who were actually a minority of the country's population. The elected leaders saw this as the result of a British stratagem to control the majority Sinhalese, and deemed it a situation that needed correction. In 1956 Sinhala Only Act which initially restricted the fair use of Tamil and English languages. Protests against this policy by the Tamils was met with mob violence that eventually snowballed into the 1958 riots. Throughout the 1960s, protests and state repression against protests created further animosity. In 1971, the policy of standardization that was implemented strained the already tenuous political relationship between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities. There was also a series of notable ethnic riots known as the 1977 riots following the United National Party coming to power in 1977.cite paper
author=Rajasingham-Senanayake, Darini
url=http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/api052.pdf
title=Dysfunctional democracy and dirty war in Sri Lanka
publisher = East-West Center
version =AsiaPacific Issues, No. 52
date= May 2001
format = PDF
accessdate = 2006-08-01 ] In 1981, the renowned public library in Jaffna was burnt down by a violent mob. Until 1983, there were similar incidents of low level violence between the government and the mushrooming Tamil militant groups with a significant number of murders, disappearances and cases of torture attributed to both sides.

Events of July 1983

The events dubbed Black July began after members of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the Tamil Tigers or the LTTE) organization ambushed a military convoy in the North of Sri Lanka on the evening of July 23, 1983 outside the town of Jaffna in the North of Sri Lanka. Initially, a remote controlled Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was detonated beneath the jeep that was leading the convoy injuring at least two soldiers on board. As soldiers traveling in a truck which was following the jeep dismounted to help their colleagues, they were ambushed by a group of Tamil Tiger fighters, who fired at them with automatic weapons and hurled grenades at them. In the ensuing clashes, one officer and 12 soldiers were killed, while two more were fatally wounded, bringing the total death toll to 15 along with number of rebels. [cite book| last =O'Ballance| first =Edgar | title =The cyanide war : Tamil insurrection in Sri Lanka, 1973-88 | publisher =Brassey's (UK) | year= 1989 | location =London | isbn = 9780080366951 p.21 "see also Edgar O'Ballance"] Kittu, a regional commander of the LTTE later admitted to planning and carrying out the ambush. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.21]

In order to avoid a violent backlash from the population due to the ambush, [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.21] , the government decided to quietly bury the 15 soldiers at the Kanatte cemetery in ColomboFact|date=December 2007. They would therefore be going against standard procedure where the fallen members of the armed forces were buried in their home villages. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.21] On July 24, the day the 15 servicemen were to be buried, some Sinhalese civilians who had gathered at the cemetery, angered by news of the ambush, which was magnified by wild rumor, [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.22] formed mobs and started killing, raping, and assaulting Tamils, while looting and burning their properties in retribution for what happened. While a number of Tamils fled the city, many of the Sinhalese and Muslim people tried to save the lives and properties of Tamils despite the activities of the gangs. Many Tamils were sheltered in government buildings, temples and Sinhalese and Muslim houses during the following days. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.23] cite book | last=Piyadasa | first=L. | title=Sri Lanka: The Holocaust and After | publisher=Zed Books | year=1986 | id=ISBN 0-906334-03-9 ] cite journal | coauthors = Social Studies Circle of the Sri Lankan Worker-Peasant Institute
title = Anti-Tamil Riots and the Political Crisis in Sri Lanka | journal = Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars | volume = Vol. 16 | pages = 27 | publisher = Questia | year= 1984 | url = http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97784500 | accessdate = 2006-08-01 ]

The government declared an emergency curfew in Colombo on the evening of the 24th; however, the Police were unwilling, or unable [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.23] to enforce the curfew. The Army was then called in to help the Police. However the violence continued the next day, and began to spread all across the country, engulfing areas with sizeable Tamil populations, including Kandy (where curfew was declared at 6 p.m), Matale, Nawalapitiya, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya. Vehicles on the streets were burnt, and Tamil people were dragged from cars and beaten or hacked to death with knives and axes. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.23] Fire-engines were also driven away by the mobs.

One of the most notorious single massacres of the riots [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.23] took place at the Welikada high security prison on July 25. Thirty-seven Tamil prisoners, most of them detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, were killed by Sinhalese prisoners using knives and clubs. Survivors claimed that the prison officers allowed the keys to fall into the hand of the Sinhalese prisoners, while at the subsequent inquest, the prison officers claimed the keys were stolen from them. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.23] A second massacre at the prison took place on July 28, in which a further 15 prisoners were killed. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.25]

The curfew was extended nationwide on July 26 as a precautionary measure, as there were more outbreaks of violence against Tamils in areas where various ethnic groups lived together. By the evening of the 26th, the mob violence began to slack off, as the police and army patrolled the street in large numbers and began to take action against the rioters. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.24] The soldiers killed in the Jaffna ambush were quietly buried during the night curfew. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.24] The daytime curfew was lifted in Colombo the next day, although sporadic violence continued in other parts of the country over the next few days, mainly in response to rumors that "kotiyas" (i.e. Tamil Tiger) were coming to attack the city. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.24]

Brief rioting broke out on the 29th, after which police shot dead 15 rioters. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.25] A 24-hour curfew was imposed on the capital, and the security forces were able to regain control of the city.

Government's response

There was a growing tension between the Sinhala and Tamil communities of Sri Lanka, even before the actual riots, and with the formation of militant Tamil groups, there was a rising anti-Tamil sentiment among the Sinhalese majority. Although it started as a spontaneous reaction by Sinhalese mobs gathered at the Colombo Cemetery where the bodies of the soldiers were to be buried, elements associated with the ruling United National Party (UNP) was actively involved in the organization of the riots.cite book | coauthors = Rajan Hoole, Daya Somasundaram, K.Sritharan and Rajani Thiranagama | title = The Broken Palmyra - The Tamil Crisis in Sri Lanka: An Inside Account | publisher = The Sri Lanka Studies Institute (online: University Teachers for Human Rights) |month=April | year=1990 | location = Claremont, CA | url = http://www.uthr.org/BP/Content.htm | id = Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 90 - 61314 ] Also, during the early stages of riots, the local police officers and military stood by doing nothing.cite book | last=Swamy | first=M.R. Narayan | title=Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran | publisher=Literate World | year=2003 | id=ISBN 1-59121-003-8 ] By July 26, however, police and the army were out in the streets taking actions against the mobs and most of the violence died out. The government extended the curfew to prevent violence from spreading to other parts of the country. A brief span of rioting broke out on July 29 when police shot dead 15 Sinhalese looters.

Even though some Tamil politicians accused the ruling UNP for not taking appropriate actions to prevent the riots, according to the government it took vital counter measures from the very early stages to combat rioters and safeguard the Tamil community. Curfew was enforced immediately after the riots broke out. The attacks, according the government, were carefully organized and government properties such as trains, buildings and buses were the initial targets. Prime Minister Ranasingha Premadasa formed a committee to organize shelter and feeding for an estimated 20,000 homeless Tamils in Colombo. These temporary shelters were situated at five school buildings and an aircraft hangar. After the number refugees increased to around 50,000 and the Government with help from India took measures to send Tamils to north by ships. [O'Ballance, "The cyanide war", p.24]

Eyewitness accounts

The rioters initially targeted government properties. As it had happened many times before and after, most of the people who gathered at the Borella Kanatta, where the dead army soldiers were supposed to be buried, directed their anger towards the Government. Later it developed into a full scale violence, targeting Tamil citizens and their properties.

The murder, looting and general destruction of property was well organized. Mobs armed with petrol were seen stopping passing motorists at critical street junctions and, after ascertaining the ethnic identity of the driver and passengers, setting alight the vehicle with the driver and passengers trapped within it.

Mobs were also seen stopping buses to identify Tamil passengers and subsequently these passengers were knifed, clubbed to death or burned alive. One Norwegian tourist saw a mob set fire to a minibus with 20 people inside, killing them all. cite web
title = History of Tamil struggle for freedom in Sri Lanka: A photo album
work = Quoted from the London Daily Express, 1983-08-29
publisher = Ilankai Tamil Sangam: Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA
url = http://www.sangam.org/FB_PHOTOHISTORY/ONE.htm ]

Tamil civilians in other cities, including Galle, Matara, Gampola, Nawalapitiya, Pussellawa, Ginigathhena, Hatton, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, and Anuradapura, were also attacked by Sinhalese mobs.

Casualty estimates

The estimates of casualties vary. While the government initially stated just 250 Tamils were killed, various NGOs and international agencies estimate that between 400 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3090111.stm BBC NEWS | South Asia | Twenty years on - riots that led to war ] ] and 3000 people suspected of being Sri Lankan Tamils or Hill Country Tamils were killed in the riots. 53 political prisoners alone were killed in the Welikade prison massacre. Eventually the Sri Lankan government put the death toll at about 1000 dead.

More than 18,000 houses and numerous commercial establishments were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Tamils fled the country to India, Europe, Australia and Canada. Many Tamil youths also joined the various Tamil militant groups including the LTTE.

Prosecutions and compensations

There was a presidential commission appointed during the subsequent People's Alliance government that estimated that nearly 1,000 people killed and 18,000 establishments including houses were destroyed and recommended that restitution be paid. Thus far, no restitution has been paid or any criminal proceedings against anyone involved begun.

=As a remembrance day= July 24, or Black July Day, has become a day of mourning and remembrance amongst the Sri Lankan Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora around the world. The [http://www.ctconline.ca/ Canadian Tamil Congress] sponsored an event in downtown Toronto on July 24, 2006, for Tamil-Canadians to gather and thank Canada for granting them asylum. Similar events were held in Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.cite press release
title = Thousands Of Tamil Canadians Say Thank You To Canada As They Remember "Black July"
publisher = Canadian Tamil Congress
date = 2006-07-19
url = http://www.ctconline.ca/Press%20Release%20July%2019.pdf ]

References

External links

* [http://www.pact.lk/ Peace and Conflict Timeline (PACT) - information and perspectives on Black July]
* [http://www.groundviews.org/remember Articles from Government Ministers and civil society on the 25th commemoration of Black July and the 50th commemoration of the anti-Tamil riots of 1958]
* [http://genocide.org.uk/genocide/ Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka]
* [http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca200307/20030723july_83.htm July still black after twenty years - from the official website of the Sri Lankan government]
* [http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/document/papers/BlackJuly2004.htm The former President of Sri Lanka about Black July]
* [http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol/1983.htm Remembering 1983 black July riots in Sri Lanka]
* [http://genocide.org.uk/genocide/?page_id=4 Photos of mob violence against Tamil civilians]
* [http://www.blackjuly83.com Black July '83 - Extensive survivor stories and documented history about Black July]