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Black July and the Tragedy of Lost Opportunities
Sunday, 23 July 2006 - 6:55 AM SL Time
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The abomination that was Black July would have happened even without the `Four Four Bravo` operation of the LTTE. The killing of the 13 soldiers was merely the spark which ignited the inferno of communal violence; the firewood of fear and the fuel of hatred were already in place, created by the anti-Tamil hysteria which had undermined the political sense and collective sanity of the South. The image of the Tamil `enemy` had permeated every level of Sinhala society, eroding human civility and moral responsibility. By 1983, fear, contempt and hatred, caused by the menace of the `hadi and para demala`, had made the Sinhala South ready, willing and able to inflict wholesale and limitless violence on Tamils, for simply being Tamils. Without this deliberately constructed psychological condition, the Black July would not have happened, even with the killing of the 13 soldiers.
Cyril Mathew`s was the known and remembered face of this madness. However an equally damaging role was played by the SLFP, with its virulent opposition to any political solution to the ethnic problem and its irrational identification of even the weakest measure of administrative decentralisation with separation. Sinhala extremists in the government and outside it popularised a language of violence directed against not just the handful of armed Tamil youths, but every Tamil, from politicians who believed in democratic reforms to students in Medical and Engineering Faculties. Together the Green, Blue, Yellow and Red Sinhala supremacists created in the South 'a catatonic obsession with the fear of being overrun' (Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist ' Mani Shanker Aiyar), which, coupled with the traditional `teaching of contempt` towards the Tamils, constructed a state of mind which making inevitable the mindless violence against Tamils, which characterised the Black July.
History tells us that Sinhala supremacism was opposed to decentralisation and devolution per se and that this opposition had nothing to do with the presence or the absence of terrorism. Time has dimmed the memories of how much the Southern extremists hated the TULF and Appapillai Amirthalingam then. JR Jayewardene in his 1977 election manifesto promised an All Party`s Conference to address the grievances of the Tamil people within a specific time frame. Once in power he was not in a great hurry to fulfil this promise. But whenever he tried to decentralise some power to the Tamil people the SLFP opposed it with the same irrational vehemence the JVP and the JHU are opposing a political solution today. Before Black July there was no relationship between conceding devolution and appeasing terrorism since power would have been shared with the democratic Tamil parties, mainly the TULF and not with the LTTE or any of the other armed groups. But devolution and even decentralisation were still rejected by Southern extremists, who thought the North-Eastern problem was a function of the unwillingness of some uppity Tamils to mind their Ps and Qs.
Hindsight
Hindsight can be a depressing thing. On the 29th of January 1981 Prime Minister Premadasa made a four day official visit to Jaffna. The events of that trip demonstrate that, the Vadukkodai resolution notwithstanding, the TULF still had hope of a single undivided country and the desire for a common Sri Lankan destiny. There was no Tamil boycott of the visit, despite the obvious disappointment about the delay in enacting the DDC legislations ' a delay in some part caused by the anti-decentralisation/devolution hysteria of the SLFP.
JR Jayewardene did not want even the slightest diminution of his power and authority and perhaps he used this SLFP opposition as an ideal excuse to delay the DDCs. However, despite this delay, there was hope among moderate Tamils that the DDCs would work. At this stage the accent was not so much on the political aspects of devolution but on its economic advantages and it was thought that the DDCs would bring much needed development, and through it a better future, to the Tamil areas.
So, despite the opposition of a minority of young militants, the traditional Tamil political elite were willing to give the DDCs a chance. The speech made by Mr. Amirthalingam, welcoming PM Premadasa to Jaffna, testifies to the willingness: 'Hon. Prime Minister, let me tell you that we are aware of the problems that the government faces from the opposition to this matter. We compliment you and the Government on the courage with which you met that opposition by extremist elements in the South in passing that Law and carrying it through Parliament. I hope early action will be taken and that measures of decentralisation will become a reality very soon' (Speech delivered at the Special District Co-ordinating Committee Meeting held at the Jaffna Secretariat ' 29.1.1981). Reading this expression of hope and optimism 25 years and much bloodshed later, the distance we have travelled since then seems impossible.
This hope of a new era of democratic reforms did not last long. The SLFP boycotted the DDC polls and the regime violated them, engaging in naked acts of rigging in Jaffna, thereby proving correct the refusal of the militants to believe that the South will willingly share power with the North. But far worse was the act of cultural genocide in the burning of the Jaffna Library. Betrayed by the government and damned by the SLFP, the moderate Tamils of the TULF and their democratic, non-violent methods began to look not just ineffective but also counterproductive. From then onwards, the two sides drifted apart. A compromise was still possible, if President Jayewardene had really wanted it. If he did, willingly, then, what he did at the compulsion of the regional superpower in 1987, the disaster could have been averted. But the Jayewardene regime, having alienated the North now focused on alienating the South, with political acts such as the Referendum and economic policies which created a wide gulf between the rich and the poor. Abused, violated and neglected by a dispensation that was drunk with power and indifferent to the mounting political, economic and social problems, the country irrevocably drifted into the abyss of the Black July. The regime added insult to injury when it introduced the 6th Amendment. The moderate Tamil leadership was finally destroyed and the road was made clear for Vellupillai Pirapaharan and his Tigers.
Which Way ' Backward or Forward'
Will the Rajapakse administration repeat the same mistakes' The APC process notwithstanding, the dominant impression is that of a regime that is in thrall to Sinhala supremacists, not just electorally and politically but also ideologically. The JVP has gone to the Supreme Court demanding an immediate de-merger, sans a referendum, of the North and the East. Two of the leading lawyers appearing for the JVP in this case are also members of President Rajapakse`s hand picked panel of experts whose task is to propose a political solution to the ethnic problem. Two judgements of this Supreme Court stand out ' the judgement on the date of the election, which paved the way for the Rajapakse Presidency; and the Bindunuweva judgement, which absolved this horrendous massacre of blood guilt (As the UTHR stated in its Special Report No.
19: 'Human Rights Watch recently related reports that justices had appeared hostile to the prosecution and that one judge 'publicly reminded the courtroom to remember that the inmates who had died were members of the LTTE, suggesting that this might mitigate the guilt of the accused.'). The official website of the Ministry of Defence (with the President as the Minister and his brother as the Secretary) has taken upon itself the task of waging a propaganda battle not only against the LTTE but also against Tamil nationalism. The impression is of a symbiotic relationship between the President and the Sinhala supremacist forces, a relationship which will undermine and destroy any possibility of a political solution to the ethnic problem based on democratic devolution.
The regime is under tremendous international pressure to come up with a devolution package. The international community, including India, would prefer something along the line of the Oslo agreement but it is likely to settle for a semi-unitary/federal model, a la India. This was made clear once again during Ranil Wickremesinghe`s visit to Delhi. The imperatives are clear; but whether the regime has the political and the psychological capacity to come up with a reasonable political solution is doubtful. What is more likely is a time buying exercise, with judicial help from the LTTE, which wants democratic devolution as little as the Sinhala supremacists do' Fundamentalism does make very strange bedfellows.
The LTTE has already rejected the APC process and put forward the ISGA as the only basis for negotiations for a political solution. This means that the TNA would remain a non-participant in the APC. In this context there is a national need for Tamil leaders who will represent the moderate and democratic point of view and guide the APC process away from the rocks of Southern and Northern extremism on to a more centrist course. The anti-Tiger Tamils need to come together and present a common formula for devolution to the APC, the country and the world. Separately they do not have the political authority to make a difference (whatever the military prowess of the Karuna rebels may be) but together they have the potential of presenting a democratic Sri Lankan Tamil alternative to the Tigers.
We have to move beyond the Black July but we cannot do so until we understand it and the forces which made such a conflagration inevitable. Recent events in Trincomalee demonstrated in no uncertain terms that the Black July is not just a memory of a past mistake but also a portent of a future error. The Tigers will continue with their efforts at provoking just such an outcome. And so long as we fail to see the distinction between the Tamils and the Tigers, so long as we fail to realise that the Tamils have apprehensions and grievances which need to be addressed through political measures, we will be vulnerable to the LTTE`s machinations to ignite another Black July.
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