{"id":107637,"date":"2013-09-26T01:18:06","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T19:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=107637"},"modified":"2013-09-26T01:18:06","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T19:48:06","slug":"blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect\/","title":{"rendered":"Blak July: Remarks & Testimonies In Retrospect"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

By\u00a0Rajan Hoole<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rajan Hoole<\/p><\/div>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July\u00a0\u2013 Part 30<\/strong><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

We have thus found that alternative explanations, which hold the general violence of July 1983, and the prison\u00a0massacres, to have occurred spontaneously without a core of advance planning, are defective in every respect. As to the planning, we have further the testimony of Tamil UNPer Mr.\u00a0Ganeshalingam, former Mayor of Colombo. The following is an extract from Victor Ivan\u2019s article, \u201cThe best laid plans of government men…\u201d in the Counterpoint of July 1993:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThe next question I put to him was whether Mr. Cyril Mathew had no connection with the incidents of July 1983.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

His reply was that not only Cyril Mathew but all the main leaders of the Government at the time had a hand in it and that those incidents were planned and implemented by the Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I asked him what the Government\u2019s aim was in doing it, he said the Government feared that the anger that was growing among the Sinhala people at that time against the Government might become an anti- Government insurrection, and that it was done to direct the people\u2019s anger away from the Government. The Government did not expect that there could be such far-reaching consequences as have ensued.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Hector Abhayavardana, who was then a\u00a0leading intellectual in the LSSP was very clear that the violence had been well planned in advance. He observed, \u201cThis violence involved not only obtaining electoral lists, but also marking out the Tamil homes and assigning them to different squads. All these take time and organisation.\u201d As to which section of the Cabinet was involved, he thought \u2018it was the whole lot of them\u2019. He was skeptical about Ronnie de Mel\u2019s attempt to strike a dissenting note.<\/p>\n

In opening this chapter we quoted Minister Anandatissa de Alwis\u2019 statement of 27th July that the violence was \u201cwell-organised\u201d and \u201chighly planned\u201d, which was backed later by his competent authority Douglas Liyanage in his broadcast statement that \u201cthis whole business was not planned in 48 hours\u201d. Some months later, CMU leader Bala Tampoe went to de Alwis\u2019 ministry on some business. The Minister, learning of Tampoe\u2019s presence, summoned him to his office. Tampoe had been LSSP candidate for Colombo Central in 1960. Tampoe referred to de Alwis\u2019 statement cited above and asked him sardonically, \u201cSo, were you trying to say that some mysterious external hand was behind the violence?\u201d de Alwis made a momentary grimace with his lips, and after a short silence, observed, \u201cBut after that [statement of mine] it stopped no?\u201d In other words, he was staking some credit for reining in the violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Indeed one cannot exclude de Alwis from complicity in the violence. He was after all the man in charge of government publicity. He could not have been kept in the dark. He was a senior party man getting on in years and was not in the running for the top job. He had a reputation for being relatively sane in that lot and was not regarded as a notorious goonda agent. Perhaps he realised that things had gone dangerously too far and came out with something close to the truth to rein in his own party men. Fixing the Left as scapegoats was perhaps a subsequent innovation.<\/p>\n

Direct testimony of Cabinet involvement in the violence came from an individual very close to them. He had told our informant that before the violence there had been meetings in a closed circle on dealing with the Tamil issue. He added that after he realised what it was, he kept away. On other occasions, however, this individual gave a different version when confronted.<\/p>\n

A measured indictment of the Government came in the form of a statement by the Ceylon Workers\u2019 Congress, whose leader Mr. S. Thondaman was in the Cabinet (L. Piyadasa pp. 90-92 & Madras Hindu 13.10.83). It said: \u201cThere is substantial evidence to believe that the events of the last week of July are not a sudden and spontaneous outburst….It appears that a concerted attempt has been made by means of a carefully laid out plan over a long period of time to destroy the houses and belongings of persons of Indian origin in the professions and in trade. The objective of this exercise appears to be to deny this community all avenues of progress and condemn them to a permanent state of captive labour.\u201d To our knowledge, the Government did not contest this conclusion, although Gamini Dissanayake gave a long response to another charge in this statement (see Sect.20.4).<\/p>\n

A person outside the Cabinet who was by many journalists and political observers of the day identified as part of the \u2018core group\u2019 was the firebrand Buddhist monk, the Ven. Alle Gunawanse, who was behind the Bauddha Peramuna. We will examine his role in the next chapter.<\/p>\n

To be continued..<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>Part one –\u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July: Borella, 24th Evening<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part two –\u00a0<\/strong>Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July: What Really Happened At Kanatte?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part three –\u00a0<\/strong>Black July: \u2018Api Suddha Kara\u2019 \u2013 JR\u2019s Failure To Declare Curfew<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part four –\u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July: The Cover Up<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part five –<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a030th July 1983: The Second Naxalite Plot<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part six \u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0Black July: The Testimony Of Lionel Bopage, Then General Secretary Of The JVP<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part seven –<\/strong>\u00a0Black July: Thondaman & Muttetuwegama<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part eight –<\/strong>\u00a0What Was Behind Tiger Friday \u2013 29th July? -The Significance Of The Pettah<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part nine –\u00a0<\/strong>Tamil Merchants In The Pettah \u2013 Post July 1983<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part ten \u2013 \u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July: A Family\u2019s Tragedy In Colombo<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part eleven –<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Sri Lanka\u2019s Black July: The Question Of Numbers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twelve \u2013 \u00a0<\/strong>Welikade Prison Massacres: The First Massacre: 25th July 1983<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part thirteen \u2013 \u00a0Welikade Prison Massacres: Testimonies Given At The Magistrate\u2019s Inquest<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part fourteen –<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Circumstances Leading To The Magistrate\u2019s Inquest<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part fifteen –\u00a0Welikade Prison: The Second Massacre: 27th July 1983<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part sixteen –\u00a0Welikade Prison Massacres: Chief Jailor Observed Army Commandos Coming In<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part seventeen –\u00a0Welikade Prison Massacres: Postscript<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part eighteen –\u00a0July 1983: Planned By The State Or Spontaneous Mob Action?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part nineteen –\u00a0July 1983: Ranil Wickremasinghe Followed Cyril Mathew<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty –\u00a0Events Of 24th July \u2013 The Eve Of The Holocaust: Who Wanted A Military Funeral?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty one \u2013 \u00a0Events Of 24th July: What Were The Army\u2019s Orders?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty two –\u00a0Black July: Further Evidence Of Advance Planning<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty three –\u00a0Black July: The JSS Goon Squad Regime<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty four –\u00a0Institutional Implications Of The JSS And Black July<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty five –\u00a0Black July: Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gonalwela Sunil And The Kelaniya University<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty six –\u00a0Black July: Army Hathurusinghe Prevented Police From Assisting Prison Victims Under Attack<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty seven –<\/strong>\u00a0Black July: Justice Of Peace Gonawela Sunil And The Killings In Prison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty eight –\u00a0Prison Massacre And The Alitalia Hijacker Sepala Ekanayake<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part twenty nine – \u00a0Black July: Further Indirect Evidence Of State Involvement<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong>From\u00a0Rajan Hoole<\/a>\u2018s \u201cSri Lanka: Arrogance of Power<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0– Myth, Decadence and Murder\u201d.\u00a0Thanks\u00a0to Rajan for\u00a0giving\u00a0us\u00a0permission to republish.\u00a0<\/em>To be continued..<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":96860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nBlak July: Remarks & Testimonies In Retrospect - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blak July: Remarks & Testimonies In Retrospect - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-25T19:48:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Rajan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"94\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"110\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/blak-july-remarks-testimonies-in-retrospect\/\",\"name\":\"Blak July: Remarks & Testimonies In Retrospect - 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