Confronting the Complexity of Loss

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violence including the assassinations of Tamil police officers and Member of Parliament M. Canagaratnam in 1980 set the stage for what would later be known as ‘Black July’— an event that fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict. The July 1983 ethnic pogrom is often described as the starting point of the ethnic war in Sri Lanka. 42 On 23 July 1983, the LTTE conducted an ambush, which resulted in the death of thirteen Sri Lanka Army soldiers. The next day, riots broke out in the capital city and quickly spread to many parts of the country. S. J. Tambiah in his seminal work Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy 43 describes the event and the loss to human life and property. According to his account, the 1983 eruption showed ‘organised mob violence at work’. He pointed to news reports of ‘mobs being armed with voters’ lists, and detailed addresses of every Tamil-owned shop, house, or factory’. 44 He observes that though the official death toll was 350, the figure could have been as high as 2,000. 45 He also refers to the incredible damage caused to property and the estimated 100,000 Tamils who were left homeless in Colombo alone. 46 The majority of victims were Tamil, although there were reports that persons of Indian origin were also targeted. The state’s failure to prevent violence has been well documented, both by Tambiah and others, including K.M. de Silva. Tambiah described the involvement of the state as a ‘disconcerting feature of the 1983 riots’, 47 where the breakdown of law and order was ‘caused as much by the active participation or passive encouragement of the ultimate guardians of law and order—the police and the army—as by inflamed criminal excesses of the civilian marauders’. 48 K.M. de Silva makes a similar observation: What distinguished the riots of July 1983 from previous disturbances was the role of the security forces. The breakdown in law enforcement in the early days of the riots had no precedent in the past; it took the government nearly a week to reestablish its authority and quell the violence. The security forces were either generally indifferent to or ignored their peacekeeping role, repeatedly refusing to intervene when their intervention could have saved lives and property. The machinery of law and order had almost totally collapsed. 49 Several types of incidents involving violence and loss of life and property took place during the next three decades, all of which may be considered components of the ethnic war. First, civilian massacres by security forces took place during the war. An early example of this type of violence was the incident in August 1983 when army personnel pulled 42 See Ketheshwaran Loganathan. Sri Lanka: Lost opportunities: past attempts at resolving ethnic conflict (1996). 43 Tambiah, op. cit. at 21. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. at 22. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. at 24. 48 Ibid. 49 K.M. de Silva, Regional Powers and Small State Security: India and Sri Lanka, 1977-1990 (1995), at 71. 14
twenty civilians off a bus and executed them in retaliation to the LTTE’s ambush. This trend of military attacks on civilians in retaliation to LTTE attacks continued for more than a decade. One of the early massacres took place in Trincomalee, where a series of attacks from May to September 1985 allegedly perpetrated by military personnel and home guards claimed the lives of over a hundred Tamil civilians. 50 On 12 June 1991, a bomb in Kokkadicholai, Batticaloa resulted in the deaths of two soldiers and the serious injury of a third soldier. Shortly after the incident, Army personnel allegedly killed sixtyseven civilian inhabitants of the villages of Makiladitivu, Muthalaikuda and Munaikaidu in retaliation. 51 A Presidential Commission of Inquiry—the Kokkadicholai Commission—was subsequently appointed to investigate the incident, but only recommended the dismissal of the commanding officer for failing to control his subordinates. Moreover, on 9 August 1992, Army personnel attached to the Poonani Army Camp in Batticaloa allegedly killed 35 Tamil civilians in Mylanthanai. The killings were said to be in retaliation to the assassination of senior army officer Denzil Kobbekaduwa. 52 All of the accused were eventually acquitted. During this time, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces deployed after the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord were also accused of similar retaliatory attacks against civilians. Two such attacks took place in October 1987 at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital and in August 1989 in Valvettiturai, Jaffna. Each incident allegedly resulted in the deaths of over 50 civilians. 53 Two other incidents involving the Sri Lankan security forces warrant mention, although the retaliatory nature of the attacks is less evident. The first was the killing of five Tamil students in Trincomalee on 2 January 2006. The Special Task Force of the Police and other military personnel based in Trincomalee were accused of carrying out the attacks, obstructing investigations into the incident, and threatening witnesses in the magisterial inquiry. The other case involved the killing of seventeen Sri Lankan employees of a French humanitarian organisation, Action Internationale Contre la Faim in August 2006 in Muttur. Both cases were referred to in the 2006 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into alleged serious human rights violations 54 (known as the Udalagama Commission). However, the final report of the Commission was never published. 50 University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), ‘Can the East be won through Human Culling? – An Ideological Journey Back to 1983’, Special Report No. 26 (August 2007). 51 International Commission of Jurists, Authority without Accountability: The Crisis of Impunity in Sri Lanka (2012), at 135. 52 Ibid. at 153. 53 See Rajan Hoole, & Ranjani Thiranagama, The Broken Palmyra, the Tamil Crisis in Sri Lanka, An Inside Account, The Sri Lanka Studies Institute (1992). 54 The cases that fell within the mandate of the Commission were: The assassination of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadiragamar; the assassination of Member of Parliament Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham; the killing of five youths in Trincomalee on 2 January 2006; the killing of seventeen workers of Action Contre La Faim in early August 2006; the assassination of Deputy Director General of the Peace Secretariat Mr. Ketheesh Loganathan on 12 August 2006; the killing of 13 persons in Kayts on 13 May 2006; the disappearance of Rev. Nihal Jim Brown on 28 August 2006; the Death of 51 persons in Sencholai in August 2006; the killing of 68 persons in Kebithigollewa; the killing of 98 security forces personnel in Digampathana on 16 October 2006; and the assassination of Nadaraja Raviraj MP on 10 November 2006. 15
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Page 6 and 7: Acknowledgements The author and the
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Page 10 and 11: accounts—was not undertaken. It i
Page 12 and 13: Part 1: Context and Chronology 1. C
Page 14 and 15: Such socialisation gained momentum
Page 16 and 17: The LTTE’s modus operandi evolved
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Page 22 and 23: Second, the LTTE carried out attack
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Page 26 and 27: The Western, Southern and Sabaragam
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Page 30 and 31: then eventually to the Arunachalam
Page 32 and 33: Everyone was terrified. But there w
Page 34 and 35: The primary occupation of our villa
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Page 40 and 41: Gnanasara Thero [General Secretary
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Page 48 and 49: Investigate Complaints Regarding Mi
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Page 52 and 53: insurrection. 108 The sentiments ex
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esponsibility often shaped the exte
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easons that led, through massive or
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ecommendation: Leaders on all sides
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Deegalle, M., ‘Is Violence Justif
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OHCHR, Promoting reconciliation and
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illegally-detained-and-held-without
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Annexes Interview Participants No.
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Lost property due to riots in Aluth
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If you observe that the interviewee
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