Can the country move on from July 1983?

The month of July, since 1983 has become a month for reflection on one of the country’s darkest chapters. While the killing of 13 soldiers at Thirunelveli, Jaffna on 24 July 1983 is cited as the trigger for what led to more than a week of violence against Tamil citizens of the country by Sinhala mobs, there is no justification for what happened during the shameful days in the history of the country.

J.R. Jayewardene who was the executive president at the time reacted too late to stop the violence and by the time he acted all the damage was done. Citizens of this country were killed because of their ethnicity; their houses were looted and burned and relations between the two main ethnicities in the country were damaged beyond repair. What followed was a 30-year separatist war in which thousands of people were killed and while active terrorism was brought to an end in 2009 with the military defeat of the LTTE, it too added to the scars that the Tamil citizens of this country have had to bear.

It has been 42 years since July 1983 but it weighs heavily on the collective conscience of the Sinhala community. Like in all communities, there are those who hold extremist views, but generally there is more realisation that what happened due to the political needs of a ruling party at the time, the United National Party (UNP) has become a black mark for the country and the majority community.

And the reason why this remains so till today is the lack of accountability in this country. It is not only with regard to what happened in 1983, but it also applies to incidents that took place before and after that year. Successive Governments have adopted a ’forget and move on’ attitude which is convenient, but it does little to display the bitterness among communities or build inter-communal relations and trust.

Realistically it is near impossible to find the perpetrators of the heinous crime committed in 1983. Most of the politicians linked to the violence are dead but it’s like their henchmen who were involved in these incidents are still around but legal action against them is unlikely to ever happen. But that does not mean that there should be no attempt to punish those involved. At least a few convictions would help to ensure those of minority communities feel safe in this country.

Ironically the JVP which was blamed for the 1983 violence was proscribed by the then Government and today they are in power, holding the very same executive powers that J.R. Jayewardene held. The JVP was a communal outfit at the time but there has been no evidence to prove it was involved in what happened in 1983 against the Tamils. All evidence shows that it was thugs of the UNP that perpetrated the violence.

It is not clear if the JVP-led NPP Government will want to address this issue now even though they are in power because in Sri Lanka, be it communal violence, State sponsored violence or violence committed by groups like the LTTE or the JVP, any sincere attempt to probe such incidents would be akin to opening a can of worms. The unexpected outcomes of investigations into the crime are likely to sully both those in power or out of power. It would also mean a large section of the country’s State apparatus itself being implicated and hence it is unlikely the NPP will make any such attempt other than symbolic gestures to woo the Tamil community.

The citizens of this country cannot expect leadership from politicians to build communal relations. Building empathy and understanding the other’s point of view would go a long way to building confidence and trust among communities and must be people-driven. This could lead to a better future for the country where the likes of 1983 July would never ever take place.