Sri Lanka: Eelam Tamils Remember Black July 83. Calling Tamils to Unify as Political Force to Realize Tamil Eelam: TGTE

“July 83 ” Racial Pogrom Was Not an Isolated Incident. It Was a Defining Feature of the Continuous Process Since the Independence of Sri Lanka in 1948.

Today is the 39th anniversary of the evil “July 83” racial pogrom against Eelam Tamils. As the international Commission of Jurists observed at the time, starting from 24th July 1983,”day after day Tamils of both the ‘Sri Lankan ‘and ‘Indian’ varieties were burned to death in the streets, on buses and on trains, not only in Colombo but in many other parts of the island-sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their houses and shops were burned and looted. Yet the security forces seemed either unwilling or unable to stop it. In Jaffna and Trincomalee, some members of the armed
forces themselves joined in the fray, claiming an admitted 51 lives”.

On July 25, 1983, the three well known Tamil freedom fighters, Kuttimani, Jegan and Thangathurai, were brutally and barbarically killed by Sinhala prisoners held in the same jail. According to eyewitness accounts, Kuttimani who had proclaimed in the court that he would donate his eyes upon his death so that those eyes would one day see the birth of a free Tamil Eelam, had his eyes gouged and his blood drunk by his Sinhala attackers.

Video: https://youtu.be/QDdshS1Alqo

The eminent Harvard Tamil scholar, the late Professor Stanley Tambiah, wrote at the time on how Mr Lalith Athulathumudali, who was later to be the Minister of Security, nearly wept with ponderous histrionics over a sight that he never dreamed he would see – lines of Sinhalese people waiting to
buy food as a result of the violence. “He had not a word to say in sympathy for the frightened Tamils crowded in indescribable conditions in refugee camps”.

Such is the plight of the struggle of Eelam Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. When 450,000 Tamils were suffering in the North without food and medicines while being subjected to indiscriminate bombing and shelling by Sri Lankan forces in the early months of 2009, the international community and the international media paid hardly any attention. Today, when 100,000 people gathered in the South in protest at the old Parliament, the international media has zoomed in from everywhere to cover the spectacle. Such are the ways of the global media and their priorities.

The silence around accountability for the Tamil genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes committed by the Sri Lankan State, coupled with the absence of a resolution to the Tamil National question demonstrates to us that the plight of the Tamils is not an important issue for international
powers. We cannot depend on others to struggle for us, to realize justice and achieve the freedom we yearn for our people. We keep hearing a few murmurs here and there about an All-party government, the “protesters”, the post-Mullivaaikkaal generation or the international powers would
deliver justice and freedom for the Tamils.

The history of the past 13 years has only proved to us that those expectations are nothing but waves of illusions in the distance, moving just like the wind
that blows over the Galle Face Green. The injustice to us Tamils was seen, heard, and recorded well also in the Galle Face Green and steps of the old Parliament already in the 1950s and 60s.

So, on this 39th anniversary of the pogrom of July 1983, let us be realistic and acknowledge that we ourselves must continue the fight for our freedom and justice. There is a growing space for it in the evolving international law and international relations. However, to maximise our presence as a Nation in that political space, as the Tamil National Leader said, for any political move our power is important. Not necessarily military power, but the power of a unified force of people comprising of Tamils from the Tamil Eelam homeland, the Diaspora and Tamil Nadu Tamils, along with global Tamils coming together as a power centre. Unified action can be built on the basis of a common working program. Realising that power, and the will to muster it as a dedicated and determined force is the need of the Tamil nation on this day.

Video: https://youtu.be/QDdshS1Alqo