Sugath Kulatunga, …. original submission with highlighting added by the Editor, Thuppahi
That** was the story of Monday. The Friday that followed was a stark tragedy and a national calamity which has left its bloody stain in the records of our recent history. This was my harrowing experience of Friday 29 July 1983.
Black Friday: 29 July 1983
The events of Monday the 25th of July were well organized. There were leaders and supporting groups. Each group had a defined area to deal with. The leaders had a list of names and addresses of Tamil residents in the area. Probably they were extracts of the electoral lists. It appeared that the core group was joined by bystanders for kicks, and they swelled the crowds. From remarks made by them, I had the impression that they were taking revenge on the killing of the 13 soldiers in Jaffna and were bent on destroying the business assets of Tamils and sending them back to the North. They seemed to think that they were doing a national duty. They had a slogan of ‘If you want separation go back to the North’ (kaallak ona nam uthurata palayaw)
By Tuesday the situation appeared to be calm, and offices opened but there was an air of suspense. Even my Tamil secretary reported for work. She described her terrible experience hiding in a room in her house hearing all her valuable articles and furniture destroyed by a rioting mob. She also had news about how the army had run berserk in Jaffna shooting innocent bystanders. The reaction of the Army in Jaffna was perhaps the reason why JR did not declare an emergency and call out the Army. He may have worried about how they would behave in the South. Most Tamil people were now brought into refugee camps. One of the largest was at the Ratmalana Airport. Conditions in the Airport camp were not primitive but had experienced a peculiar unanticipated problem where upper caste people had refused the use of water supply with low caste persons.
At this time, I was living in a rented upstairs section of a spacious house at the end of the Airport Road in Ratmalana. My landlord who also had sheltered two senior Tamil managers of a nearby garments factory and had taken them to the refugee camp was concerned about the presence of the Tamil family with us. He said that most people in the neighbourhood were aware of their presence with us, mainly because the loquacious old lady was moving around. At my request the landlord spoke to the young lady when she reacted aggressively that they would rather go back to their house which was intact than go to the refugee camp. To my relief on early morning of Thursday the accountant husband came in a car and took away the family. My wife who had invited them to stay with us, fed them and treated them with the utmost courtesy was very hurt that there was not even a word of thanks from the young mother. I of course did not expect any kind response from the professor who was non-communicative throughout the stay with us. I consoled my wife saying that the situation was not conducive to normal behaviour. But they never gave us even a telephone call even later.
The morning of 29th Friday was another normal morning but, in most offices, and public places there was a sense of remorse. There were also attempts to justify the events, but behind all these there was a lurking apprehension that there could be some reaction from the terrorist groups. This imaginary fear led to a disastrous situation. This is how the media reported the events on Friday the 29th. “Colombo was still calm on 29 July. Tamil residents visited friends and relatives who had taken refuge in the many refugee camps in the city. Around 10:30 a.m. two Sinhalese youths were shot on Gas Works Street. A large crowd gathered at the scene, and soon rumours started circling that the youths had been shot by Tamil Tigers from the Adam Ali building. The building was surrounded by the army, navy, and police who proceeded to fire at the building using submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles. A helicopter also fired at the building with a machine gun. The security forces stormed the building but found no Tamil Tigers, weapons, or ammunition inside.
However, rumours began to spread around Colombo that the army was engaged in a battle with the Tamil Tigers. Panicked workers began to flee in any mode of transport they could find. Mobs started gathering in the streets—armed with axes, bricks, crow bars, iron rods, kitchen knives, and stones—ready to fight the Tigers. The Tigers never came, so the mobs turned their attention to the fleeing workers. Vehicles were stopped and searched for Tamils. Any Tamil they found was attacked and set on fire. A Tamil was burnt alive on Kirula Road. Muslims mistaken as Tamils were burnt alive on Attidiya Road. The police found an abandoned van, on the same road, that contained the butchered bodies of two Tamils and three Muslims. Media reported that the Police shot dead 15 rioters. At 2 pm on 29 July, a curfew came into force which lasted until 5 am on Monday 1 August.”
This report is accurate other than on what happened on Attidiya Road on which I will share my personal experience later. By about 11 A.M. I saw hordes of people hurrying down Galle Road out of the city and also heard about the rumor of an LTTE attack in Pettah. My staff requested permission to leave the office as they expected that public transport would be completely nonfunctional. I instructed to close the office and telephoned my wife who was working in the Labor Tribunal Office close to the Ministry of Trade and requested her to stay at the Ministry till I picked her up. I drove from Kollupitiya to Vauxhall Street. On the way at the Slave Island junction a solitary Police Sargeant stopped the car and asked me not to proceed further as there was a pitched battle going on in Pettah and there is a suspicion more terrorist could be there in the Fort area as well. I explained to him that these could be false rumors and anyhow I was going only up to the Ministry of Trade.
After picking up my wife I drove back to Galle Road to go home to Ratmalana. Passing Kollupitiya junction I saw my erstwhile colleague at the Ministry of Communications, Oswald Tillakaratne looking lost and trying to get a lift from any passing vehicle. He was delighted when I stopped the car for him. He requested me to take him up to Nugegoda from where he said that he would find a way to go home to Udahamulla. I volunteered to take him home and, on the way, gave a lift to two female office workers who were in the same plight. A vehicle with room for passengers would have been anyway forced to take passengers by the do-gooder mobs. After dropping Oswald, I was driving through Papiliyana Junction when I saw a young boy and a young man trying to hail a lift. I took them in and when I said that I was on my way to Ratmalana the young man said that to go through Attidiya Road would be risky and invited us to stay a while at his place located just before the turn off to Attidiya Road. I thanked him and said that I must get home as early as possible and dropped him at his place and turned into Attidiya Road.
On the Attidiya Road there was quite an agitated mob. They stopped the car and after speaking to us allowed us to proceed. When I asked what their problem was, they repeated a more forbidding version of the Pettah attack. They were expecting an imminent mass attack all over the country. It was the same story of the battle across the Manampitiya bridge in 1958 riots. I told them that I was coming from Colombo and those rumors were baseless. But I should have known that a mob on the warpath cannot be convinced.
About 100 meters on the Attidiya Rd a woman stopped the car and asked us to drive the car into her compound and wait for some time. I thanked her but continued towards Ratmalana. There was a crowd on the bridge over the canal and on inquiry was told that two Tamil people were forcibly drowned in the canal. Later I learned that they were from the Airport camp who foolishly assumed it was safe to go home for a bath. Another 800 meters from there was a smoking van inside which were a number of half burnt bodies. Three victims had been Muslim butchers. It was an outrageous sight to see a well built bare bodied middled aged man with an axe on his shoulder marching up and down the road close to the murder site. My car was stopped several times to check on our identity and to take out petrol to set fire to houses. Fortunately, when they found mine was a diesel vehicle they gave up. There were a few hundreds of panic-stricken vengeful mobs on the Attidiya Road.
As I passed the southern boundary of the open and unguarded Airport, I realized how vulnerable the refugee camp was which had only Airport security. Immediately I reached home (there were no mobile phones then) I telephoned my Chairman Santhiapillai and explained the precarious situation and requested him to inform the authorities to take preventive action. He had informed Manikdiwela the Secretary to the President who had arranged for Air Force to move into the camp and to make an announcement of Police shooting 15 rioters dead in Attidiya. I had faced many a mob in 1958 but they were rural mobs, who were prepared to listen to a ‘mahattaya’, but the Attidiya mob was a sophisticated semi–urban mob, including a few ‘’mahattayas, which was mean and enjoyed mob power and was more organized and violent.
After a few weeks the tardy government arranged to send away the destitute and indignant refugees by ship to the Jaffna. The government in an attempt to cover their own guilt proscribed the JVP and a few other organizations accusing them of the riots. It was common knowledge that the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya was much more suspected. I had personal knowledge that the fleet of buses which brought mobs to Colombo South from the Kesbewa CTB Depot was organized by trade union politicians.
The ultimate result of this unwarranted and stupid episode was that the ranks of the LTTE which was in the hundreds expanded into thousands giving them enough cannon fodder and international sympathy. A large number of educated Tamils emigrated to foreign lands giving the LTTE an agitational and fund-raising platform. The accusation that all these events & processes were a result of the provocation of a separatist demand of the Vadukoddai resolution “calling upon the Tamil Nation in general and in particular the Tamil youth to come forward to throw themselves fully into the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not until the goal of a sovereign state of TAMIL EELAM is reached” also had an element of truth. It must be said that the Tamils in the South did not object to the separatist demand. The common impression among the Sinhalese was that the Tamils among them had also become more aggressive and disparaging of the Sinhalese.
POSTSCRIPT
Sometime in 1980 I had worked in Nepal in a short consultancy assignment when I met General Rana who was my local counterpart. We had done a lot of travelling in the rural areas of the country and had become good friends. (He was a Hindu but his son was named Rahula and the daughter Yasodara.) As a member of the Rana family, he had been a popular officer with an excess of influence; so much so, the King who was also a Rana removed him from his post as ADC to the King. A few days after the riots General Rana appeared in my office and said that his rank had been restored and the King had asked him to visit Sri Lanka and find out whether India had a hand in the riots and what subterfuges India had used to achieve their objectives. Rana indicated that he would like to meet high ranking officials, politicians, and journalist to gather relevant information. I contacted Dr. Sivali Ratwatte who was also in Nepal and knew the General, to arrange the meetings.
The general came to my office again after a week or so. He had travelled by bus all over the country and said that not only the riots, but the business of the Tamil community had been well planned. He said that ninety percent of the business houses, small and large had been in strategically best sites for marketing. He said that was precisely the situation in Nepal and stressed that he believed there had been an Indian involvement in the events in Sri Lanka. I told him that the Sinhalese in rural areas were basically farmers and were not good at trading. I gave him the example of a village I lived as child where we had a Muslim shop (Thambi Kade) and a cigar shop (suruttu kade) run by a merchant (Mudalali) from Jaffna. They were popular and served the community well. His said that India was very apprehensive of any Chinese involvement in the affairs of Nepal and Sri Lanka should also watch every move of India which was very nervous of China. He narrated to my amusement of an official event where an Indian General was holding forth on the strength of the Indian Army and saying that India can take ove Nepal within a week. The long harangue of the Indian General had annoyed the small-made Chinese General who had stood up and thumped the table and said very softly “my friend please remenber that there is a country called China on the Northern border of this small nation..”
… with Pictorial Images rendered accessible by the work of David Sansoni [who is now based in Sydney]
END NOTES
** Referring to Sugath Kulatunga’s detailed account of his experiences on “Black Monday’ … that is, 25th July: viz, https://thuppahis.com/2024/04/05/that-monday-25th-july-1983-in-colombo-organized-violence-within-the-pogrom/
SOME PERTINENT LITERATURE
DBS Jeyaraj: “Black July …., https://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Black-July-Thirty-fifth-Anniversary-of-Anti-Tamil-Violence-153018.html
Michael Roberts: “The Agony and Ecstasy of a Pogrom: Southern Lanka, July 1983,” in Nethra April-Sept 2003, vol 6: 199-213 …reprinted from original Roberts, Exploring Confrontation, 1994, pp. 317-30.
Lionel Bopage: …. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/july-1983-pogrom-the-black-week-that-devastatingly-impacted-sri-lanka
Brian Seneviratne: ….. https://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/07-28_Consequences.php?uid=1866
